Address lost, yet the river found the course of civilization
Walking down that path, I find my home again
Where I was born in the current of eternity
By the banks of the Sandhya River, in an illuminated, sweet morning.
Waking up from sleep, I saw a single language in the eyes
of the dove and the magpie-robin
Becoming that language, I walked down an unknown path.
The embodied love of light and shadow plays twice a day like a butterfly
Right there, I captured the name of the new, like the light of the moon.
Found on a secret piece of paper scented with a handkerchief, that sacred place.
Sitting under the shade of the mango orchard along the avenue of dreams,
I once saw the sun’s two eyes
Where the dove flaps its wings in the longing of desire.
As the bashful pomegranate keeps blooming,
I become the lamp of youth
Nature, too, sometimes smiles through the eyes of youth.
That is why the birds also take flight in the light of desire’s moon
That day, it was as if you, too, turned into a bird.
You wanted to fly a colourful handkerchief like a flag
A spring-coloured saree was not what you wore.
Hence, I found no shelter in the infinite sky
Flying birds, in their own whims, sketch picturesque images.
And carrying love gathered in their beaks
They fly far away to find the poet bewildered by desire.
That is why I became the spring sun, sitting under the shade of the tree.
One day, wandering from flower to flower like a bee,
the six-legged creature failed to quench its thirst
Like Yudhishthira, the waves of the sea donned the mantle of manhood
Claiming the title of a noun, it gave itself a name unknowingly.
I held onto it like Ekalavya
Abiding by the nature of Newton’s third law, I too left a name.
Floating that unexpressed name into the ether,
I cast it toward the sky
I never found it back again.
Still, I think of the poet’s name once more…
Rummaging through the history of names,
poets do not retrace their steps.
Who else researches the scent of a rose in a library?
You are the poet, the air force of poetry,
the exquisite architect of verse.
An image of eternity and the alpana of my pain.
My flower petals dance and sing with poetic resonance
Down the eyes of the sky streams a torrent of poetry’s tears.
In the water of those clouds, I find your poetry,
new and fresh metaphors of verse.
Sometimes, like carded cotton, the poems touch the tenderness of the chest
Sometimes, like a wild buffalo, the body stirs in the thrill of conquest.
The notebook of poetry gets drenched in a boundless flood of joy
Every letter turns into bright, ecstatically thrilled eyes.
Like the thousand-eyed Indra, you surround the entire sky, my spring, my joy.
As for me, I have no fear of losing
For I am earthly, having lost everything in the hope of evolution.
Surely, you can see the spellbinding surroundings with your divine vision
Because poets sometimes become possessed of God’s own power.
That is why poets do not stop at using flowers merely for worship;
they even turn the mind into grass.
Poets want to silently conquer all the forces of the Earth with fragrant flowers
Seeing the surrendered maidenhood of women who inhale the scent amidst blooming flowers,
They forgive the bees, drawing them close in supreme affection.
Staring and staring at the lock that opens with the key of failure
They hurl it away in the fiercest scent, like a wounded tiger.
Perhaps that is how the inner garment of poetry unfolds
You are that poet, the restless poetry of a deserted island.
My awakened, melancholy braided hair,
and the soft ribbon of an unknown exile resembling a serpent.
It hurts to remember those sweet childhood days
When you wore half-pants and played with the neighbourhood companions.
Engrossed in playing bride-and-groom with your flower-friends
like the children of the clan
Your running and jumping was like the innocent moon.
Like blooming petals, climbing trees together, riding rafts together
Swimming in the muddy pond or returning after noon
slipped away in the clear waters,
Only to sit quietly like a saint after getting scolded by mother.
Sometimes while playing Gollachut, just as you were
about to touch the ‘old lady’ base…
No, I do not believe that you filled them
With kisses upon kisses like the moon of the ninth lunar day.
I know this was never anywhere in your Charyapada.
Even knowing childhood love to be defiant,
there was never a chance to look back
In the experience of beholding the moon-face of the woman falling behind.
Perhaps you thought that when female serpents strike,
earthquakes occur all around.
I was never aggrieved by this
I know the Chatak bird drinks no water other than the rain of the Swati star.
The aversion in your Kaunteya nature never brought despair.
Devdas can never live without Parvati
Such is the nature of the waterless fish.
The past floats up in the YouTube folder like scenes from a drama
On every leaf of spring, it sheds the dew of memory’s monument.
The story of the blackberry tree still makes me laugh in solitude
I know that by using the utmost of your strength,
you climbed the branch of the insurmountable tree.
In the hope that the person you loved would find satisfaction in eating the blackberries.
But a star fell that day just as the sun tilted down,
Plunging me, too, into despair on a sleepless night of Baisakh.
Climbing the rustling branches with over-enthusiasm, your body suffered a fall
In your mind, perhaps you said, “Proclaim, Hero, proclaim: High is my head!”
I know the body’s perception of pain forever yields to the power of the mind
My cursed debt still haunts the alleys of imagination today.
So many words come to mind today
The breeze of the waterfall sways the heart and mind.
The downpour falling incessantly in crystal streams
When it plays music effortlessly on the tin roof
It feels as though a restless percussionist is playing the tabla with exquisite skill.
In the crying of the clouds, the heat that spreads through the waters of the Yamuna
The bangle that rings out in the skillful resonance of its own rhythm,
Has dried up today in the memory-bereft, restless drought of deep, cloven hoofprints.
That journey, it wasn’t only you who was wounded like a lone wild goose
The perspiring peasant woman has lost the right to her dreams
The farmer has lost the right to his vitality.
The harvest of pain rolled on the slanting ground like a headless torso on a battlefield
The words of pain came floating through the ether,
touching my courtyard here and there.
The agony of a trapped green pigeon seemed to grip my chest
I banged my head against the deck, lonely and in solitude.
No one knew the tale of my pain-filled sorrow
Only he who, even while drowning in the shore of cruelty,
comes and stands close like a messenger of doom,
That tranquility has comforted me time and again.
I could not touch your cheek, O sweet-voiced one
Yet, deeply immersed in kisses upon kisses,
I became blue-throated like Shiva.
When we would all be ecstatic on Sri Panchami
with the worship of the Goddess of Learning,
The grace of the school would change.
Like clean-up workers, wrapping our scarves tightly around our waists,
we would dive in with joyous elation
The pre-worship preparations were designated this way for the maidens.
When you, like strong men, brought sweet winter-melons,
cucumbers, papayas, and such fruits on your heads,
Seeing your perspiring bodies, the Almighty would generously pour out
The strength to bear the weight of knowledge into your open minds.
Otherwise, when the harvest came, they wouldn’t hold up plump,
ripe fruits before the future poet,
Nor would they carefully offer two pairs of bananas to quench the thirst.
Unable to bear the weight of this total failure,
how many prayers have I offered in hopes of deliverance!
How many times have I woven garlands of Palash flowers at the feet of the Goddess!
But the scentless Palash flower could no longer melt the Goddess’s heart.
It was as if the Almighty was unstoppable
Hence, I dressed up in the attire of an Apsara,
but the result was quite the opposite.
As I walked swaying my braided hair in white attire, unknowingly to myself,
I felt as if I were a devout ascetic.
There was a bond distinct from the worship of Goddess Saraswati,
which she perhaps sensed.
The Goddess of Learning realised it; that is why,
at the end of the year, like a messenger of doom,
My father would make me listen to the bitter potion of failure and pace the floor in terror.
I do not know why Goddess Saraswati wraps someone tenderly in her soft veil,
Yet pushes another into the tragic ocean of failure toward an uncertain future.
Such behaviour of an impartial mother had to be endured year after year
Hence, the pain is not to be forgotten, worshippers who are all like Urvashi.
But at one point, when I stood like Uma, looking at your bright face,
It felt as if there are people in this world who can love me.
I am not despondent; hence, like the pages of history,
I return again and again with the intent of repeating history.
I met that witty boy on my way, at the bus stop
By virtue of a certificate of fancy rhythms,
he is now checking pulses to earn a living.
Hanging a stethoscope around his neck, the monkey
that once waited in time’s exile has learned to read the human body.
Stepping off at the station, it felt as though
I should grant him the chance to touch this ungrudging hand
With a bit of longing for a touch, how much he wandered behind my footprints!
But the capable quiver of a skilled hunter was aimed right at him.
Wrapping himself in a bright red shirt like the coolies of the dockyard,
Even after coming to school dressed like a dandy,
his dreams turned out to be pale like balloons.
With an intense longing for union, the God of Time
aided him every day without question
But he lacked the power to bypass the boundary of the poet’s insight.
Hence, chasing behind like a calf, he would fail time and again.
The bus, moving at the speed of a meteor on the rough road
like a youth-radiant horse,
Paid no heed to the pain and sorrow of the passengers upon its back.
Within it lay the tyranny and stubborn speed of a demon
from the Ancient Arabian Nights
The driver was perhaps an inhabitant of a different planet, or a superhuman
Hence, he had no time to think about the passengers.
Stepping down with a painful experience that was the polar opposite of wellness,
I saw the signboard of a doctor with a fancy degree.
Stepping inside, I was astonished—
That lost face was deeply absorbed in patient care, his hair turning gray.
The sight, peeking out like the moon hidden behind colours, felt beautiful
It felt as if the ancient world had turned upside down.
Perhaps upon seeing me, he felt an extraordinary attraction
I said, the white drops of illness are sweating across my body
Feeling more melancholic than tired, I have come in search of a little peace.
He who, in hopes of a tiny touch, walked behind day after day like Devdas,
Could he not think of me as anything other than a patient?
In my mind, I said, the Shiuli flowers of autumn fall exactly this way
The worshippers gather some, and crush some underfoot entirely unawares.
I have read your poetry a lot
“The universe is as if born as a woman to give birth to a new world
That is why woman is now symbolic everywhere.”
I have internalised these two lines deep within my own mind
In the essence of creation, the mother of the Universe is eternal and immortal
That is why, in the hope of creation, the poet has made a stranger of his home.
Enriching creation is a task as hard and grueling as growing plants on barren land
Only a skilled farmer achieves success by wounding the soil with the plowshare.
Perhaps it is by bringing the water of peace to the eyes
and face of the peasant woma
