Kaushik Baiswas

Date of Publish: 2025-11-08

A few poems of Kaushik Baiswas

 

Probably a love poem/1

 

I extended my hand to touch the sunbeams

Rains fell in round drops

 

I opened the trunk of words kept aside

And yet

The secret chambers of the mind

Let out

Only darkness

 

So silent so barren

Though there are people everywhere

As if I inhabit an island

Yet unpopulated

 

The leaves are mine until they fall

The leaves are mine until they fall

The stars mine until they shine

The grass is mine, too

Until it’s enveloped in dew

 

And this poem was mine

Until I handed it over

To you

 

Familiar poems

 

(1)

From the clothesline stretched at the backyard

Flutters a cat

In the wind

 

A carcass

 

I watched it for a moment

And looked away

 

Between us

The rain passed

 

(2)

I am alone at home

Maa has left for the Women’s Day celebrations

 

The maid mops the floor

From one end to the other

 

In between, I inquire what happened

To the one who parted with

Her toddler at home

And left

After floggings from

The husband

 

“She’s been brought back.”

 

The maid called out after a while

Baba, I have finished the day’s work

Please close the door behind me

 

Now, I am alone at home

Standing sentry

Maa is off to celebrate

The Women’s Day

 

(3)

Music from the neighbour’s Holi party

Reverberates around the soul

 

Of my house

 

His Excellency has announced

That he won’t play Holi this year

 

I overheard some people say

That He has already played it

With blood

 

I do not seem to recall

When I played Holi for the last time

 

Like the awkwardness at meeting

An old friend who spreads stories about you

The itching on my body

Owes more to the smirks

Than to the coloured powders

(4)

He came to my house

Riding on my back

 

Now the time is up

And he prepares to leave after

A weeklong stay

 

I just saw

The lifeless spider

At the tip of Maa’s broom

 

And I felt I saw Shaheen Bagh

In front of my eyes

(5)

A man sips tea

A man talks

A man chuckles

A man sits in solitude

 

The evening is turned evocative

By a busy man

 

(6)

Kamal-da was saying the other day

How

Even though the earth looks so pretty

And everything happens rhythmically

 

The back-story of its origins is not as smooth

It is instead quite violent

 

Today

As I sat down to appreciate the rhythm

In the marble cutter machine

And in the sound emitting from

The filter of the aquarium

 

The silent sound of the falling leaf

And the sound of the scooter passing by

 

I felt I was saying a hi

To the beast inside

 

Probably a love poem/2

 

My sky is tiny

Yours vast– the wings, too, are freshly grown.

 

In one corner of your vastness lies my place,

A little cloud to hide my body.

 

There ends the restlessness

 

There is no end to the thinking

after wanting to say something

The nights too are long–

 

So, I pass them with a wavering mind

 

When I wake,

you’ve already begun to fly

 

That’s how it should be–

even this waiting has a name

 

there’s some truth in it,

and a part of sorrow too

 

That too is happiness

 

I change myself like changing a bedsheet

 

and become natural–

perhaps too natural

 

The way a car stays carefully in a garage,

but that’s not its real place–

 

Ha ha!

 

My garage isn’t even covered

 

You fly when you rest,

and also when you truly fly

 

Even this ease has a name–

 

Hey the respected, beloved public

 

You

you live only in the waiting to not exist

 

What once was

has slipped through the fist

 

Your company means

the death of my void

and the death of my void means

 

the raving of your simplicity

 

I don’t agree

 

There isn’t one such word, is there– one event?

That can drag out

 

Knock upon

 

Stir the mind

 

I write first, revise later

 

I must gather my broken pieces myself

 

I write first, make the corrections later

 

Is it so hard to embrace a person?

 

Is it so hard to hold one person close?

 

Then why is it still hard to stand

with sweat and mud,

among the simple ones of the world?

 

I’ve fallen asleep, but both eyes stay awake.

In sleep, only my dream is awake

 

How am I lonely–

My riyaaz stays with me

 

Things rush from the head,

children swing back and forth,

 

Plastic horses spin in circles

 

I write first, clean later

 

A house is not merely a house–

It’s a rehearsal space for dreams.

 

Unreachable desires are let loose

The rainbow is drawn not with brush or colour, but with yearning

 

If there were no house,

How would contradictions reveal themselves?

 

How would your sky become our sky?

 

I write first, repair later.

 

You wake me from fear, I know–

But the noise you make while doing it

 

even your persuasion cannot convince me.

 

You hide from me and go close to another,

tell me who you like,

who’s your new love

 

you tell in detail.

 

Don’t say, don’t say, don’t say.

I don’t agree, I don’t agree, I don’t agree.

 

In the steps of sympathy hides the enemy’s plot.

Look me in the eyes and say–

Is it right or wrong?

 

Who was it? Was it you? Where?

 

Yesterday the exchange of glances was with the enemy–

True or false?

 

I too was there, in a corner,

Or above the flames of a burning fire

 

Knife in hand,

In the air the taint of conspiracy.

 

Truth or lie,

Right or wrong

 

Just telling the story won’t be enough.

You must step onto the road.

 

Look, they’re coming–

The first emperors of Rome–

 

With pomp, with their army

 

They own nothing– empty men.

No matter– they are flatterers.

 

Don’t be impressed– why do you get impressed?

Don’t melt– why do you melt?

 

They are performing the Ashwamedha sacrifice.

 

If you can, catch the horse,

Tie it.

At Chomani, Namsang, Garukhuti

Open your mouth and say

I don’t agree, I don’t agree, I don’t agree–

Even when you persuade, I don’t agree.

 

Kaushik Baiswas

Translated from original Assamese into English by Jyotirmoy Talukdar

About the poet :

Kaushik Baiswas is a leading young poet in Assam. He has published two collections of poetry so far — Babari Bilash and Ei Batax Khinikei Dilo. He is currently working as a Registrar in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Assam Medical College, Dibrugarh. He hails from Nalbari.

About te translator:

Jyotirmoy Talukdar works at Ashoka University, New Delhi as an English Language Adviser to the Dean of Academic Affairs. He is a native of Pathsala.