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With a tenuous thread
you’ve tied me
to the temple bell
on the lonely hill
And you
are flying above
The bell is swaying
in the wind blowing from the west.
Like the first shower of summer
I have fallen
on the heart of grass
Where are you
Behind the bare trees
on the hill top
the sun goes down
grazing his heart on she-oaks
The night is waiting
You too have lost your way
flying away
Or fallen
on the bamboo patch
unnoticed
Breaking the nest
of the potter wasp
on the wall of the stilted hut
you said
It’s no use
After being smashed the nest will rise again
as the cracked field
gets sun-burnt after the paddy is over
The blazing fire
melted in darkness
through the conch bangle you’ve seen
a man going
along the dark tunnel
and in the palm of the scraggy hand
your dark face
Dew drops fall from the devil tree
On the hilltop is burning a lamp
Is the lamp
moving towards me
or am I
going towards it
One day I felt like this
while trying to get at
a vermillion-hued mango with a crook
in the haunted wood by the backyard
Riverine
Kanaikhunda
the rivulet of my heart
quietens down
On a rotten piece of wood
drifting down from somewhere
perches a yellow bird
sad and lonely
On its wings
the noon weaves a net
A shoal of colourful fish
haul in from the bottom
of waters
dead faces
forgotten smiles
Streaming tears of Ketetong
Bulging clouds are hanging
Amid the silvery clouds
sitting somewhere
you shed tears
And the Dehing flows on
In the burnt-out coals
on the black hillock of Ledo and
in the darkness in a half-burnt shoe
or
in the brown cocoon of a butterfly
on a dry twig of a siris tree
Death laid eggs
The streaming tears of Ketetong
that scour me
Oozing out of the waterspout
of the Patkai hills
was the water
that filled the sacred ponds of Angfew
And there
a yellow butterfly
was peering at its image.
Ketetong : a village near by Margherita, a township in Assam
Angfew : Angfew Ningkhee, a rare personality who died from cancer in 2008
Ashokastami
The pinda offered with sand Mother
Sita Shanti
No water
But let a river of sand keep flowing
the cursed undercurrent of the Ganga
Let the sobs of sand flow
Let tears flow
At Ashwaklanta
the votive immersion of the ashes
The pieces of the burnt out bone
were maya
washed back by waves
to the water edge
The clay pitcher
with the red cloth
was the robes of maya
the house of maya
Maya was not ashes
Maya was
the remains of burning
The lump of pinda
shed thrice from the palm
with the right thumb
Let all ants come to life
Let them eat up
the share of the departed
We too are ants
the house of five winds
Pan Apan Saman Udan Byan
We live on the pinda
of our forefathers
First Excavation of Rangringkan
Reduced to debris
in a landslide
our hilly hamlet
Our uproar and cries
won’t reverberate
again
The graves of our forefathers
have touched down the underworld
In search of what
the wild grasshoppers
hop around and sniff
the stones
From the darkness
of the huge pits
of the swamp
frogs croak even today
As if the cracking whips
make black and blue
the living memories
of our crumbling days
Second Excavation of Rangringkan
In the foothills
of the echoing hill
the days
of the dark people
crushing down
through the crevices of rocks
were black
Their heads
shaded by death
their beads of sweat
rolling down
under their yellow hats
turned black
in darkness
On the day
of the echoing hill
tumbling down
on the day
of those ancient monasteries
and graves
tumbling down
the bell metal gong
fell silent
And the prayers
shed tears
Those teardrops too
were black
To Ganesh Gohain
(a) Thought Architect
The palace of my thoughts
is multi-storeyed
concrete covering the land
Standing on the cool marble
of the concrete floor
one can’t see the spire of a minar
glorifying the sky
Breaking through the maze
of an ancient tree
as the rays of sunlight
tread on earth
the optical illusion
couches on the smooth stones
of the dark palace
The geometry of perception
cannot match up to
the knack for a flight of steps
of the thought architect
(b)
Release from colours
Votary of colours
what an artist
you are
The colours
you’ve splashed
and poured out
in the void
With turpentine
you’ve cleaned
the pallete
and washed it too
To the world of sight
you’ve returned
the colours of hers
Let the colours play
among themselves
Dazzler of colours
which world
do you belong to
In the studio of Niravana
with your two eyes
how have you managed to shape
the philosophy
of yours
About the poet -
Assamese poet and translator, Bijoy Sankar Barman (b.1980) has ten published books on different genres to his credit. Recipient of the prestigious Munin Barkataki Award in 2007 for his debut collection of poems Deo, Bijoy Sankar received the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar in 2013 for his second collection of poems Ashokastami. He was recognized as one of the ten ‘Best Young Writers’ of India by Indian Express in 2012. Besides publishing three critically acclaimed collections of poems Deo (2006), Ashokastami (2011) and Barnamukti (2015), his other published books include Pisarateoja, Ketetong (2016), the first-ever anthology of poetry of an Assamese litterateur published from Europe (in Estonian language), Kurundoheir Kabita (2014), the maiden Assamese translation of the ancient Tamil classic Kuruntokai. Apart from English and all regional languages included in the Eight Schedule of the Indian Constitution, his poems have been translated into Italian, French, Estonian etc. A post-graduate in English Literature and Sociology, Bijoy Sankar has submitted his Doctoral dissertation recently on gender perspectives in the tribal mythology of Assam. He studied in Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore, University of Tartu, Estonia as visiting Doctoral Student.
About the translator:
Nirendra Nath Thakuria (b. 1960- ) translates Assamese literature into English and his translations have appeared in Kavya Bharati, Chandrabhaga, Indian Literature, Yaatra, The Oxford Anthology Writings from North-East India, Poetry and Essays, and Dancing Earth: An Anthology of Poetry from North-East India (Penguin Books). Mr. Thakuria worked as Associate Editor of Yaatra and as Literary Editor of Assam: Land and People. He edited Democracy of Umbrella, a collection of English translations of Anubhav Tulasi’s Assamese poems. Mr. Thakuria is an Associate Professor of English at Pragjyotish College. He can be reached at 98640 90267 or [email protected], [email protected]
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