Date of Publish: 2026-07-23

A few poems of Snehankar

I WILL DISAPPEAR WITHOUT YOUR ACQUAINTANCE

 

I will disappear just like that

Without your acquaintance,

You will keep hearing an amorphous horn

No I cannot let the sorrow come

Neither can I remember the horn looking at a buffalo

Remembering the horn with a glance at the buffalo

I sent the dark buffaloes to the dark, darker than them.

Under the frozen dark, stilled the stream of blood is

The camouflage concert is in a state of to and fro

All the day all the night

And

You will hardly be able to know

I will disappear, just like that, inside your light

Huh, see

I turned myself into a lamp stand

Lit up yourself you will keep yourself lighting

Let the aspirations rest in darkness

Once the voice of a migrant bird is recognized

The space where the concert rests would shift

N.B.

The day the ancient sorrow spreads a smile through 'you'

I'll rest there at every nuance of fragmented colors

You'll see, yet, I'll remain unseen

Doesn't the shadow seize even at a dark night? (why do manipulate the fact?)

Once you will see

The moon, the sun, the star, the sky

Resting in your empty palm

Blink your eyes

Light? Where is light?

beloved

I am the beholder of your darkness.

TRANSLATED BY: SAMUDRA KAJAL SAIKIA

 

CAVITY

 

A cavity dark and dense

Undergoes a vibration

 

Rain, it is rain in deep breath

Drop by drop

 

A greedy lightening

 

A banana leaf is shaken,

(in the way I am listening from my childhood)

 

A night germinates inside darkness

With a source of light in its womb

 

Let me remember a snake with a slippery surface

Or a one horned rhinoceros

 

Don't ask me how long the night is

Nobody knows, how to measure up a journey

Neither have I known

To the marks of the teeth and the nails

Is it an ancient tale of a wild wolf?

That jumps in the wilderness to tear down the night

The dark and cold night

TRANSLATED BY: SAMUDRA KAJAL SAIKIA

 

TELEPHONIC

 

Saw your mom that evening

she was talking to someone over cellphone

on the terrace

 

She was wearing a sky blue saree

playing with her hair with manicured fingers

 

It was not raining

but the sky was cloudy

(as if it would rain any time soon)

Beneath

Guwahati was shinning with street lights

it was illusive

saw her lifting the bottle of a cold drink

How thirsty were her eyes

It was all because of herbal cosmetics

she appeared quite (young) like you

then the sky became darker

and suddenly

thunderstorm approached

it started raining heavily

 

I dialed your number

nine eight six...

a sizzling voice

I heard

 

I fell into the darkness of the sky

Who was there with me

You or your mom?

 

TRANSLATED BY: PRARTHANA SAIKIA

 

RAVANA AND THE SEASON OF SPRING

 

Ravana did not conquer the ten directions

and the three worlds for nothing.

Nor did he imprison the nine planets,

or the solar system, without reason.

 

Just imagine—

when one head is hard enough to manage

in the pollen-filled madness of spring,

what else could Ravana have done

if all ten of his heads

started throbbing at once?

 

If one nose sneezed,

how could the others remain unaffected?

And then there were the seasonal coughs,

those age-old ailments

that refused to leave him.

 

Ravana never reached for a handkerchief

to wipe his runny nose.

Each time,

it took one of Mandodari's old saris instead.

 

The learned Ravana,

gazing upon the crimson blossoms

of silk cotton and coral trees,

could not write

even a single poem on spring.

Surely,

that was sorrow enough.

 

He lived constantly

under the weight of guilt and regret—

haunted

by his failure

to compose a spring poem.

 

We struggle enough

with the burdens of a single head.

But Ravana...

Yes, he may have been a demon,

yet who would make light

of a migraine

spread across ten heads?

 

As if that were not enough,

it was in spring itself

that Vibhishana,

through the efforts of the monkey king Sugriva,

revealed the secret

of the divine missile

that would destroy him.

 

Ravana's spring poem

was never written.

Perhaps that is why

so many spring-loving,

rebellious poets

still grieve.

 

When Rama performed the worship

before slaying Ravana,

the priest who conducted the ritual

was Ravana himself.

That, however,

was before spring

had seized his head—

before the sneezing,

the coughing,

and the exhaustion

had overtaken him.

 

If you pause

and think without prejudice,

you may find

that the driest month of the year,

the one that leaves the mind

stripped of judgment and reason—

is spring itself.

 

TRANSLATED BY: SNEHANKAR

 

LET'S TALK ABOUT AGE

 

Well,

let's play the age game.

 

At this age,

certain things justifies to us,

certain others don't.

Let’s be conservative about age.

 

Eh! What else could be the hot topic?

Surely nothing is more deserving of our

Collective wisdom than tomorrow’s weather.

 

Youth has gone.

We now inhabit

that comfortable country

called middle age.

Tell me,

what subjects are left

for you and me

to discuss?

 

We are no longer children,

nor teenagers,

nor even young—

(though you're welcome

to dye the last stubborn strands

of grey into submission).

 

We no longer vault fences

the way we once did.

 

Our parents,

our children,

our households—

everything now seems

to revolve

within our careful supervision.

 

We speak loudly

and expect everyone else

to listen in silence.

 

We sit in prayer halls,

obviously not trousers

our legs are neatly

wrapped with dhoti.

 

Missing the Tuesday

or Saturday prayers?

At our age,

that simply doesn't look right.

 

We are regulars

at every sacred gathering.

Drifting souls,

forever playing the custodians, the lawmakers,

and the moral police of tradition and ritual.

 

We are the final authority.

Kings when we rise.

Kings when we sit.

 

Whether we utter

the name of God

every evening or not,

our homes are forever busy

with every distraction

except entertainment in true sense.

 

We no longer learn

anything new.

 

Surely the dust,

the wind,

and the sun

didn't turn our hair

and beards grey

for nothing.

 

Naturally,

we now know everything.

 

Politics,

to us,

has become

a storm in a teacup.

 

Revolution?

huh...

 

That is the romantic luxury

those are dreams that belong to the twenties.

 

Our concerns now

are insurance premiums,

mortgage payments,

car loans,

and paying every EMI

on time.

 

It's not that

we reject Bhagat Singh,

Che,

or Kalaguru Bishnu Prasad Rabha.

 

If another one

is born

next door

or down the street,

we certainly won't object.

 

Our real mission

is much simpler:

 

to provide our own children

with everything they need,

to keep them safe,

comfortable,

shielded from difficult questions,

and free

from unnecessary worries.

 

That,

we tell ourselves,

is what truly matters.

TRANSLATED BY: SNEHANKAR

Abgout the poet-

Snehankar was born in 1980 in Gauripur, Dhubri district, Assam. He is the author of three Assamese poetry collections: MOR SHUNYATAKHINIK CHUI CHABOLE CHESTA KORIBA, CHULOU BULI NOKOBA (2002), USHAAH (2010), and SNEHANKARAR GHORA (2011). He has directed two short films: I CALL IT LINKOOCH (2006) and RED PLUS YELLOW IS EQUAL TO (2016), and has also acted in several short films and one Assamese feature film.

For nearly three decades, he has remained actively engaged with the media and public communication in various capacities. Since 2019, he has been leading and participating in long-distance cycling expeditions to raise awareness about journalists' social security and climate change. As part of these initiatives, he has cycled thousands of kilometres across seven of the eight Northeastern states of India, excluding Manipur.