Uni -verse

There might be something
That tells us all, all the time
We can do everything we wish
But we can never lose the rhyme,

We can go north further north
Blizzards we can wear on sleeves
We can stand in the face of storm
And can write a dawn before we sleep

There might be something dear
That takes away from us all our strife
We can take the Chanukah song
and be glad with it in our mortal life

What could be of more bearing
Than to make out the pied one
Which is there in you and me
and in every grain and everyone

সাংঘাই,

কার্নিভাল থেকে শেষ ট্রেনে
বাড়ি ফেরে যুবদল
সকালের কুয়াশাছন্ন
শহর তখন বুঝি ঔপনিবেশিক যুগ ছাড়িয়ে
ক্লকটাওয়ারের হাত ধরে উঠেছে জেগে,
রাস্তায় মানুষ অগণিত চলেছে জীবন জীবিকার সন্ধানে,
প্রতিটি দিন তাদের কাছে জীবন সংগ্রাম
আর জীগ্সহ পাজেল্
মেঘলা দিনের অবসানে
দাঁড়িয়ে দেখলে তা
সাংঘাই শহরের ইতিবৃত্ত বোঝায় সহজেই।

তুমি সাহিত্য পড়ো
আর আমি আইন
যাই পড়ি কেন
আমরা , সে  তো
মুক্তির জন্যই,
গ্রন্থাগার সম্প্রসারণ ও
ত মানব মুক্তির জন্যই,
নিত্শে, ফ্রয়েড, সার্ত,
সবই ত আছে,
তারই মধ্যে
দার্শনিকের
আরেক উন্মেষ,
ওটা ও আরেক
কার্নিভাল,

সাংঘাই
নুইর্ক
হয়েছে
আর
তুমি পেলে
পারগাটরি

আমাদের বাদ রেখে।

(ডং লি অনুদিত ' Old Shanghai'  দ্বারা অনুপ্রাণিত)

হর্জে ওর্তেগা : ডুরাবিলিটি অব্ মেটেরিয়াল্স এবং ফার্স্ট কল্

ডুরাবিলিটি অব্ মেটেরিয়াল্স

পাথরটি এখানে ছিল নিশ্চিত
আমার জন্মের আগে, আমার পিতার
এবং পিতামহের, এমনকি দশ পুরুষ আগেও
ওটির অবস্থান ছিল এখানেই
এই প্লাজাতে,
সমস্ত সজীবতাকে আর বেবাক জনগণকে
সে করেছে বয়সে অতিক্রম
এই শেষ মুহূর্ত পর্যন্ত।
আমি খালি হতে পারি নতজানু
আর করতে পারি আঘ্রাণ প্রাচীন
আর্দ্রতা,
আমরা  যাব চলে আর রয়ে যাবে
পাথরটি
এ হেন প্লাজাতে
মাথা না নুইয়ে
তার নিজ অস্থির ওপর
থাকবে ঠিকই দাঁড়িয়ে
আমাদের মত ভঙ্গুর নয় সে।

হে জাগতিক স্থিতিশীলতা
লক্ষ্য করো কিভাবে ক্ষয়িত হয় সব
পাথরের সহস্রাব্দি প্রাচীন প্রলেপ
যাদের নেই ;

শতাব্দীর আলকেমিতে গঠিত ব্যসল্ট
আমাদের কান্ড তৈরী করে নি,
এই অপচয়ের আবরণে তাই
কোট আমাদের সম্বল।

কিন্তু মানুষ কি কখনো পেরেছে
করতে অতিক্রম
যা কিছু সে গড়েছে নিজ জীবন ধরে,
সে সর্বদাই বোধহয় তার সৃষ্টির চেয়ে কম সহনশীল।

ফার্স্ট কল্

কর রোমন্থন ভাষার লালিত্য নয়
যা কিছু ফেনিল
বরং তাই যাতে আছে কম্পমান আগুন
বা শিকড়ের টান।
উপুড় করে শংকু
তলানিতে আছে যা
তাকে ডাকো বালির গর্জনে
সমুদ্র যা জানে।
নাও এক গভীর প্রশ্বাস
আর দাও ডুব
আর এসে জানাও তাদের
যারা বালুতটের কাঁচে দাঁড়িয়ে
অপেক্ষমান।
অনেক কালি খরচের পরও
দেখো কেমন আমরা আজও বিবাদপূর্ণ।
তাই দূরাবস্থায় জ্বালো একটু আলো
লন্ঠনটিকে খাদের ওপর রাখো
আর খোঁজো চাবি পাথরের খাঁজে।

(এটি মেক্সিকান কবি হর্জে ওর্তেগার দুটি গদ্য কাব্যের আমার তরফ থেকে বংগানুবাদ করার একটি প্রয়াস।  স্পানিস  ভাষায় লেখা মূল কাব্য দ্বয়ের ইংরেজি অনুবাদক এন্থনি সিডমান।)

Illusory

Don't churn
Dreams of Ginsberg
Anymore Kerouac

Today I'm
fully feudal

Divided people

What's the need of
barbed wires?

অলীক

গীন্সবার্গের স্বপ্ন
আর দেখাস নে
কেরওউক

আজ আমি পুরোপুরি
সামন্ততান্ত্রিক

বিভাজন করেছি
মানুষে মানুষে

আর কি প্রয়োজন
কাঁটা তারের?

চে (Che`)

উনি আছেন
যে রকম ভাবে ছিলেন
চুরুট মুখে
একগাল দাঁড়ি

এস্প্লানেড চত্বরে
পোশাকি

যে রকমটি চাই
আমাদের
গোলগলা
ভি-নেক।

On killing fields

Mines that had been planted
Under the upper layer
Of the crust,
They could burst
Anyday

Killing fields
had made foray
Into homes
nowadays

They come not
with crops
For crops had
Become wealth of the rich

They come in different
garbs
Bayonets have become obsolete

Iron pellets are now bred
Mercilessly

Jesus of kolkata

There  was no red signal
Of prohibition
still stopped sudden
The city which so far had the speed
of storm;
Precariously held on to the road
Balancing perilous on wheels
Taxi and private,tempo, tiger embossed double deckers;

All those who raised hue and cry
And came from all sides
Labourers, hawkers, shopkeepers,customers-
They all became part of a still picture
Done by the artist, stuck to his easel;

Everyone dumbfounded
Saw how a naked child crossed the road
From one end to another;

It had rained a few hours ago
At the chowringhee;

Now the light had pierced through
the clouds
Kolkata seemed to be flooded by illusory light;

Peering out of the window of state bus
Saw the face of the sky and saw you too;

Son of a mother
Beggarly
You the Jesus of Kolkata

Stopped the traffic by your spell;

The screaming millions,
The teething and gnawing of impatient drivers
Did not deter you;

You walk through
The passage
with death on both sides,
Like someone learning to walk,

Like humanity incarnate
too glad to learn to walk
Trying to get the whole world
Within your grasp;
Like by treading trembling
you were walking from one end to another
Of the world.

(Transliteration of a poem by Nirendranath Chakraborty)

(The photo attached is taken from a daily, depicting a scene from the street of Kolkata)

Kwalkhu, a glimpse,

The alley that went away
From the chowpatty
Had houses on both sides
Their red brown bricks
Without any trace of plaster
Looked distinctively
Ancient...
The doors were big
with bolts placed diagonally,
Had those who lived inside
caught on the siesta?
But the wheels were taking those houses
away too,
And the dust and rubbles were getting settled
On trousers and hands and faces...

Kwalkhu
would be away soon,
But that memory of that alley,
That colored paper flagged one,
Would remain.

'Not all who wander are lost'

Not all
Are lost
though they
wander the most
From one end
To another,

They wander
But they don't get lost.

Some postcards...

I can say I cannot take you
To the place where I wish to go
But I can always send you
Breath of chinars covered with snow,

It is such a beautiful sojourn
To be drowned in the tenderness
of leaves forever falling soft
On the rugged earth's cold surface,

I can say I see the face of children
Not mortified by the shadows of guns
I can always send you post cards
Of larks and flock of homing pigeons.

Hiking

I would be totally wrong

If I would say I did not long

For Luke to come and call me out

For a hike through the most dense fog

The weather would be cutting through us

And we would be right there at the stop for the bus

Luke would take a swig and check on the camping gear

The mountain stream would be running close and near

Colored colony of trouts and shells

Would be visible through the greenish blue water without fail

And Luke would make a stick a fishing rod

And we would be catching more than we would've thought

And then we would grill them

And sprinkle salt 

Making a feast of what we would've got

It would be a good ol' hiking for a day

Luke,me and a fair weather of May.

(Photo: 'Painted', )

Flinty

That's the way the night
grew upon us with
meteor shower,
we stood side by side,

You told me how you loved
nights of torrential rains
Flooding the town,
how water wrote rivulets
all over you
Till they reached your feet,

I told you how nights
made sleeping morns
And morns woke blossoms

The meteorites fell
like little sparks
And flinty we became.

There's something about you

There's something about you
I forgot to tell you
Something...

Nascent like that faint smell
Of lavender
Of jasmine
And roses too...

A garden of Paradise
In short,
That I meant.

Once
the sculpted face
Fell
and with it
fell 
Our pride
Our demons

We made love after that
By the sides of our past.

(For 'Magpie Tales', photo-prompt courtesy :Magpie tales)
   

Simon's harmonica

At the porch
overlooking the valley
often whence got the chance
To get the glimpse
Of glowworms
Winging in and out
of hedges and bushes
Of flowering myrtles

I would think of Simon,
And how he blew and bent the air
Through his harmonica,

The pleasant silence
seemed to be a perfect accompaniment
To the tune that he gave birth to,
It came wafting across everything
that were around us-
The wagonload of wood at the mill
The shepherd's hut
The barn...

Simon had been a bumpkin,
'Yokel'
As some would say,
But then when he had
his harmonica
He became
the stream , forever flowing,
He became
the earth ,moist and fertile,
He became
The air, light and unburdened,
He became
The music, noiseless and serene,

Oft
Standing at the porch
I would hear Simon.

Arcadia

You are like an Arcadia for me
And I go wandering into you till
there left no more wanderings
And pastoral beauty of your soul
charms me with its innocent being,

I then become a valley
And streams of music
Dance down me.

Three and double o and more...

I have learnt this city
In my own ways-
It all started with climbing onto the bus
going to another city
crossing over the river;

It had been a delightful ride
At the terminus colored cookies came in jars at a ridiculous price-
Fifty paise for a handful;

Then there had been serpentine traffic
All through the Strand
it seemed one would take a good day's nap and wake up to another dimension
Still one would be there the same;

The florists at the bazaar appeared pretty busy
early in the morning as the baskets came from faraway places,
Their hues and cries got mingled with the thin air,

Then the big mammoth looking architecture
And the salty breeze from the river
sweeping through the hair
Of the face peering out of the window,

'How long still?'
'Not much ...only forty minutes more...'
That was the standard answer,
And creeping through the mob
We used to move,
One by one landmarks passed by us,
Some Anglican,
Some Gothic,
Some Armenian,
Some Greco-roman,

And a few hours later perhaps
Appeared half known names
on signboards,
Alphanumeric identities of places,

The city had then arrived.

Cosmopolitan

When you write about your city
selling white tin stars
assorted chocolate chips,
Pomegranate among other things
And sumac,
I think I know how language of yours
build your own homeland,
A small strip of peace
And yet
I find similar connotations of home
here -
In my city ,
Here also our footpaths are full of them,
Only some objects are our own
The rest is very much
cosmopolitan.

The musician and the General

When the General asked him
To pluck a note and pull the string-
It seemed a difficult proposition,
His fingers looking unfed for weeks
Had nothing in them to create a magic
And then all around stood derelict
Houses of his ravaged town...
Rubbles sat on minds and hearts
Of those who survived the Holocaust
And this General with stubble moustache
Wanted him to strike something...

What could be risen out of that sham?
The town ghettoed long ago had no Glam
Only furtive few notes written somewhere
Had faintly distinct a half forgotten repertoire;

Thinking all these he sat on the stool
And made an attempt to play no fool
With the board he knew like his fingers and palm...

Graded into three different steps
He put verse into the ruined build
And made a decoration with added taps
Gentle as they were till reaching the crescendo;

The General kept his eyes closed
All through the session silent as someone
Caught in between hell and heaven,

And when his fingers stopped plying
He just opened to another life
And smiled
And then gave the weary man his overcoat.