Translated from the Bengali by Moulinath Goswami

Come, make haste
don’t delay, get going, get going now!
No need to cuddle your early morning dreamy slumber
and change sides.
Shake off your indolence and get up
There’s no time-
This is the chance of a lifetime.
Lay hands on whatever you can
and quickly pack your bags
hit the road
you’ll repent if you waste time
set out –
Bhushan Pal stirred his family like a tempest.
It’s a long road ahead –
from here to the steamer ghat on boat
from there to the railway station –
What a delight! To be on train, for the first time
and onto the check post
and then a walk on foot – on foot – and on foot…
With sleep in his eyes the youngest child asked,
From there where to, Baba?
Where else! To our own country.
Waking up from their sleep
the birds chirped in familiar voices
from the shade of the itchy-tree by the pond.
The little boy glanced through the window
and saw his kite still stuck at the top of the tree
dangling in the wind, but not coming down.
Nestling an algae colony the broken paved ghat too
asked with wistful eyes – where shall you go?
One by one itchy-tree flowers fall on the water…
Where to? They all ask
Afar across the field the standing crop
Lakshmibilas paddy –
dark as cloud, waiting to take on a golden hue
has the same question to ask –
Where shall you go?
Deep into the distance a peacock-boat with flailing mast
rides the gurgling waves of the Pagla river
asking – where will you go leaving us all behind?
Are we your friends from some earlier birth?
Ain’t we anyone of this life? Ain’t we your kinsmen?

Make haste – make haste –
the sun is already up and beating down!
No need to sweep the courtyard with cow dung
no need to wipe the flat stools
no need to milk the cows, nor feed them
no need to tether them in the field.
Open the door, let them go wherever they want
just like us! But where are we going?
No idea. What is there, the place we’re heading to?
Everything. In numbers. In plenty –
Endless hopes, houses, smiles, songs
people, places, grandeur and pomp
Are the rivers there like our Madhumati?
Is the land as compassionate?
Is the paddy there like our Baikunthabilas?
Are the sheafs like gold, and the grains silvern?
Is the breeze embalmed with the smell of itchy tree flowers –
wild yet tender?
Are people less ruthless there, less scheming and expedient?
Hurry up, hurry up –
Bhushan reprimanded Bimala, his wife:
What’s all this packing and sorting about
Throw them away, tear them into pieces, give them away,
speed up
halt till you’ve finally boarded the train
Then you may relax.
What are you staring at? Bhushan nudged his son-
What is there to see in this wild wet country!
A blind pond
a decrepit bamboo hut
a one-crop land
a grass-boat…
Real things lie on the other side
in our own country, in the new territory
New item in a new nation – not man, but item
What is the item called?
New name for a new entity – Refugee!

Who are they that walk ahead of us?
Refugees too they are.
Wonder how many days they’ve spent behind the bars,
spun yarns in jail
lay doggedly at the doorstep of truth,
traversed mountains of battery
swam across oceans of hardship
walked the streets in endless rallies
shoulder to shoulder
stride for stride – shedding blood
But at the last chapter of their tedious trek,
as if they suddenly found
in the tattered and gouged out map
the radiant beacon of Heaven
And aimless they ran
to elicit the spoils of their days of labour
to occupy the coveted throne
and rest against the bursting couch of mollification.
Those who till yesterday
were oblivious of the thorns strewn enroute
they now seek a cover for the road to walk on
and plush velvet carpets in drawing rooms
They who so long travelled third class in trains
to set a paradigm of renunciation,
those who have been comrades of the masses in sorrow
they now drive in dazzling decked up carriages
drawn by ten horses
shoving pedestrians aside, alienating them
catching up with the people ahead, and leaving them behind
turning them into stark outsiders.
Yes, these people are homeless too-
some uprooted from their own country
some uprooted from ideology.

Deep into the past, beyond the realms of history, who they are!
Streaming out of the heavenly confines of Indraprastha
and walking towards the Himalayas-
five men
of the epic exodus of Mahabharata and their woman
She, their mirror image –
They – who won the battle but did not usurp the throne
they, who celebrated their toil
yet never craved for the fruits of labour,
who held high the ideals of work and not the result
and showed us –
the first one to fall was Draupadi’s bias
and then one by one fell pride
of beauty, of knowledge, of might, of greed and of aggression
and showed us, showed us all –
only Yudhistira always makes it to the destination
because he never abandons
the detestable beastly cur that walks by his side.

*******
Notes:
1. Baba – Father in Bengali.
2. Indraprastha – The capital city of the kingdom ruled by the Pandavas, the five sons of Pandu, in the epic of Mahabharata.
3. Yudhistira – The eldest of the five Pandava brothers.