> Creative > Poem
A few poems of Pranjit Bora
The Poem of the Wise Pragmatist
The old man fell down
while just getting off the rickshaw--
the waling stick knocked off his hand,
clothes torn, knees bruised and blood flowing out:
Let it flow out
What is it to me?
A woman is screaming aloud
From the inside of a car in great haste
Her screams bouncing off the street
Let it bounce off,
What is it to me?
A procession down the main road breaking though the barricades
is being fired on
and
there drops down a young man,
Let him drop down,
What it is to me?
A grenade left by some nameless assailant explodes in the motley crowd of the market
a tuition going girl of class six dies
let her die,
What is it to me?
Clothes have vanished off a girl in the mid of the road
So what, my clothes seem to be all fine.
The car has dashed off
dumping the semi naked girl on the road in the very middle of the day,
so what, my woman seems to be all fine in the house.
While sitting in his own verandah in a dusk
Someone has been slain
By assassins his son’s age,
Let it be, what it is to me?
In the old age home,
the dementia-ailed old woman
repeatedly utters
and calls for
her little son,
let her plead, what is it to me?
Unable to feed her baby most precious
The mother has thrown it off the boat to the very middle of the river
Let her be, what comes or goes for me in that?
By the chimes of midnight
In the middle of a road
A mad woman is snatching out her share from a plastic bag
Let her be, this after all, since the dawn of consciousness
Has been the norm of society and history
Someone sets ablaze villages after villages in the dead of the night
Temples and Mosques flare up into sea of flames
The wails of dogs and children engulf the horizon
I remain still very fine
Wrapped in the timeworn blanket head to toe
The woman of my mother’s age
Sleeping on the hospital verandah in the cold winter night
Coughs non-stop
The teacher of my father’s age
Ages day by day
As he treads his path to the pension’s office
I remain still very fine
I am the image eternal
What shame after all am I to myself, in my own eyes?
Translation: Dr. Kaustubh Deka
Since Dream is that Unfailing Seed
Sometimes in dream a river has to be dug up
Sometimes in dream the earthen lamps are to be lit
At every turn of the silent long roads
Sometimes in dream the sun has to be found out
Sometimes is dream a ray of sunlight has to be flown
Along the currents of mossy blood
Sometimes in dream a cloud, a wind or a flower
Has to be invited
Sometimes in dream a dream has to be implanted
on the yet to be dried eyes that have shed tears for long
Since dream is that unfailing seed
The dream of all good possibilities that have
Hitherto been enlightened the world
Therefore, a dream possesses more aroma than the crops.
Translation: Dr. Sultan Ali Ahmed
For You
How blissful it is to get dropped down
Like these flowers of laburnum
If I could get dropped down
In your dream
How blissful it is to get eroded down
Like that steep bank of the river
If I could erode down
On the middle of your chest
In your depth
In your dreariness
If I could swim upstream
By being the small carp in the water of the first monsoon
If I could weep on and on
By being the nightingale of the midnight
If I could get lit up
By being the hapless earthen lamp of gosai-thapona
How blissful it is to get finished up for you
If, like a breath of you
I could get finished in you
For the sake of all the sorrows in you.
Translation: Dr. Sultan Ali Ahmed
Poetry
Everywhere I search for you.
Amongst the ripening bamboo grove. Amongst the
heap of fallen withered leaves. In the night wind.
Amongst the yellow festivity of the sonaru. Everywhere.
Amid the gusts of the dusty wind I search for you.
In the fast receding banks of the river I search for you.
I first heard you at an indistinct agonized shiver upon
my mother’s lips.
I first heard you at a prayer’s indistinct groan upon
my mother’s lips.
Translation: Dr. Pallabi Das
Panbazar
And that was the day. The most frigid one.
Like the flowerless gulmohor very near the gate of the Don Bosco.
Like the pale moon of some cold-oppressed dusky evening-sky.
Or else like the mound on the walls of the Nehru Park.
Dry. Withered. Or else
Like the tin-roofs of the hostel that I occupied for five years. Red. Lustreless.
I was very tired that day. Still I could not ask myself to stop.
Before going away for many days I wanted to see him once.
A crowd was there at the Judge’s Field that day.
With the crazy motion of a willful city-bus
Someone was telling something to them.
And revolving round him
I was coming. A gust of wind flowing past the body.
Through the eyes a sky.
Sullen. Suspended like the breasts of an aged woman.
And moments later a heavy shower
Seized his bottom. With a joyful baste
The letter-boxes of Meghdoot Bhavan got soaked.
Two boxes. Well-shaped and shining.
Red like apples.
Like vigilant sentinels the standing bookshops
Listened intently to the thunder. Oh, yes!
Exactly on such a weather he had once introduced me to her… Nabaneeta…
The rain-soaked cloth-ends of that ever-young and sorrowful Nabaneeta
I readily kissed. Then came to me
Rabindranath, my poet favourite.
His Shesher Kabita.
Translation: Dr. Pallabi Das
After the Heavy Rain
After the heavy rain was over
Last night from the roof of my thatch-hut
Haltingly fell the water-droplets
As if the trees dropped their withered leaves
In the quietness of the night
As if the riverbanks of a lonely river got eroded
As if memories rolled down
The heart quivering my whole body…..
Your non-decaying, death-defying memories!
Translation: Dr. Pallabi Das
The Two Moons
Even on the stark blackness of this still night
Two moons glitter in your eyes!
On the night of extreme sadness
You call out loud to me
And I run swiftly to you
Breaking the fragile doors of my dark thatched-hut.
In the bright moonlight of your arms then
The whole night of my emptiness blazes,
And once when our night extinguishes
In the morning my whole body diffuses
A fragrance like that of the moon itself.
Translation: Dr. Pallabi Das
The Time Wjen Evening Lamps are lit
The time when evening lamps are lit
At the courtyard
Gather the cowherds
Upon their visage fall traces of the moon
Fragrant like the narcissus
Their voices
The sound of their footsteps expand
Like the sounds of the spinning wheel
Demolishing an adorned pyre
Separating the reeds in the marshy water
I find a way
Traceless from oneself after being
I find myself again in the evening
At the courtyard
Gather the cowherds
With a bamboo sprig I push forward
The lamp wick
Translation: Dr. Pallabi Das
A Visage
At a sunny afternoon
When the earth gets moistened
By the sudden drizzle
The sun descends
Upon the wet plantain leaves
Upon the wet sonaru
At the sky’s sensible horizon
Whence the sun drops down
To the river’s bosom
There hangs
A visage
With stains of thousands unfortunate drops of rain
That is the face
Unmysteriously mysterious to me always
Yes, who can ignore its tense glossiness
Even in utter darkness
It revolves like some ancient minstrel
That face
Always makes
Search for me
Within myself
Whose face is it
Whose
Just now
As if just now I would drown myself
At the pathetic glossiness
At the eager beckon of that visage…
Translation: Dr. Pallabi Das
Aaisabah
Still I celebrate those festive proceedings incessantly!
Within me still I hear that same melody.
That evening seven virgins at the parlour
crowded round a face
moulded by seven days of sadness.
Sparkling before the altar were the freshly plucked
pure white flowers.
On the engraved plantain leaves were spread
the light of seven earthen lamps.
Facing the tender light the virgins started singing.
seven voices united to form that benign river of melody.
With the currents of their voice
came the wafts of the honeyed fragrance
of the pure white flowers. They sang and sang
and cleared the entire scars of
seven days’bitterness
in that benign river…
At that instant I fell in love with that river!
I became a flower.
A pure white flower formed out of
seven days’sadness.
Translation: Dr. Pallabi Das
ABOUT THE POET
Dr Pranjit Bora (B. 1976) is presently working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Assamese, Dibrugarh University, Dibrugarh, Assam. Former Chairperson of Dr. Bhupen Hazarika Centre for Studies in Performing Arts, Dibrugarh University, he is presently the chairperson of Centre for Studies in Philosophy of the University. He owns an excellent academic career, and did his Ph. D. on the poetry of the leading Russian poetess, Anna Akhmatova. He has to his credit more than 30 publications of books on varied themes and published 7 collections of poetry that include Panbajar aru Anyanya Kabita, Binandiya Drishya Tumi, Bhalpowar Sashya-Bhumit, Kisu Dawarotkoi Aakash Sodayei Aru Besi Kiba, etc. His Mahasunyar Uddayan is the first Assamese novel in poetry. Kathamanbeer Rupakatha is his debuted novel on the historic Assam Movement of the 1980s and its aftermath. He has written two other novels recreating myths of Dannie and Perseus from Greek mythology. Also known for his translation works, Dr Bora has translated folk poetry, Japanese haikus as well as many short stories by different prominent writers of the world and some of these have already been published in book forms. He has also written immensely for children also including biographies. He also writes short stories which have been published in different leading Assamese magazines. His poems have been translated into Hindi, Oriya, Gujrati and Bengali.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATORS
Dr. Kaustuv Deka, a columnist and political analyst, is presently working as an Assistant Professor in Department of Political Science, Dibrugarh University, while Dr. Sultan Ali Ahmed who teaches English at B. H. College, Howly writes regularly for different journals and magazines published from Assam. Dr. Pallavi Das, is presently working as a creative artist.
Navigations 
Quick Contact
Subscribe Us
Quick Mail
