TRANSLATED FROM THE BENGALI BY ANINDITA MUKHERJEE

Collective Death

Rather be doubtful, have faith in alternative ideas.
Rather be wounded by brutal questions.
Rather whet your head, resist.
No matter what you do, don’t
concur instantly.
Because, whoever complies easily,
they can do nothing else,
they clear the path
to self-destruction.

By the way, let’s talk about Suvendu.
Suvendu and Sudha ardently wanted to cave-in together.
They did not survive.
Or say Mrinmoy Pakrashi.
Mrinmoy and Maya did not hold any difference between them.
They did not survive.
None can thrive if ideas are coalesced into one.

Remember— it’s better to live in one’s own shade
Remember— it’s better to be alive than embrace collective death
Then, be doubtful, have faith in alternative ideas.
Then, be wounded by brutal questions.
Then, whet your head.
Resist.

See, here are some uncontested, passive
men and women walking with imagination identical.
They fall in with each other easily.
They will never look back.
They will concur, they will comply, they will
climb up the stairs of Qutub Minar
in affirmation, they will jump as vacuous selves.

Also, read a Bengali fiction by Swapnamoy Chakraborty , translated into English by Nandini Gupta, and published in The Antonym:

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