ধ্যাত্তেরিকা!
চলছে শুধু বিশ্ব জুড়ে
বিষন্নতা, ঝগড়াঝাটি
দেখি শুধু এই বাজারে
মারামারি, কাটাকাটি।
হাসি খুশির মেজাজটা তাই
দিনে রাতে হচ্ছে মাটি,
শুকনো হয়ে জীবনটা ভাই
খাচ্ছে কেমন দাঁতকপাটি।
চিরনিদ্রায় লোপাট গেছে
ভালবাসা আর বিশ্বাস,
হিংসা, ঘৃণা, মিথ্যাচারে
ওষ্ঠাগত নাভির শ্বাস।
তাই ত বলি জাগিয়ে তুলে
নিজের সত্য সত্তাটাকে,
প্রেমের তালে ঠিক করি সব
ভুল গুলিকে ভুলে গিয়ে,
ধ্বংস করে মিথ্যাগুলি
উঠুক না প্রাণ গুনগুনিয়ে।
ধ্যাত্তেরিকা এবার বলে
জগত মাতাই আনন্দেতে,
সকল আঁধার ঘুচিয়ে আসুক
নতুন সকাল আলোর স্রোতে।
We become what we
acquire; wealth, culture,
faiths, appearances,
behaviors rule us in an
automated mode; display of
puppetry of human flesh
and blood, a knotty, invisible
attachment, a habit, a condemned
bondage, chaining like a wire,
beyond all scope;
a tail of an animal, or the
serpentine intoxication
tied around the throat;
all possible hopes of
breaking free from the
non-existent string, to untie
the erotic lace and unite
with the infinite is overruled;
in the guise of a bonding,
the irrelevant lanyard lies
as destiny in our mind as concrete,
visible, real, and strong; we don't
realize how weak and false
it is, even when the enslaved
life dies, the eyes close,
the curtain falls.
Hey, dude just hold my hand,
please don’t leave me behind,
without you, the stage is unkind,
I don’t find a ground to stand;
right under the stars,
hey dude, I feel so blind.
Without you,
I can’t move on, o babe,
tell me, where’d I go so wrong,
help me understand, but please
don’t leave my hand;
without you,
there’s no reason to live,
in the truest things
I fail to believe,
the dawn, the twilight,
the dewdrops, the raindrops,
the rainbow, the horizon,
the sun, and the shadow
playing hide and seek on the
comforting meadow
don’t mean a thing to me,
not anymore, the moonlit night
seems grey, a meaningless hollow
speech, Abba's 'nothing special,
a bit of a bore'.
I can’t walk without you,
might it sound mushy but
that's so true.
There were those warm nights
that stayed with us ever so bright,
in the dark, my eyes could clearly
see you smile, everywhere,
in delightful moans, forever
so agile you were, we listened
to the music and danced
along, we loved Beatles,
the ‘Hey, Jude’ song,
Carpenters, ‘the top of the world’,
we adored the lyrics of Engelbert,
or Lady Gaga’s ‘bad romance’.
My heaven was beating so right,
my garden bloomed in delight;
then all of a sudden you went
away, left a goodbye note in
a half-hearted way, tell me
how’d I lose your precious hand,
help me understand, what should
I do now, hey dude, please
help me understand.
It’s so hard to live alone,
doomed and forlorn, I feel
so heavy, immobile as a stone,
I see the memories living in
my space, staring at me
without grace, I embrace
your soft clothes I’d so
lovingly undress, all your
things tell me a thousand
stories, a myriad dreams of
countless reveries.
Hey, dude, please come back
to me, you are my love, my
destiny, without you, I don't
want dignity, my useless sanity,
you are my dream, my reality,
you are my freedom, my liberty,
hey, dude, just come back to me.
Hey, dude just hold my hand,
please don’t leave me behind,
without you the stage is unkind,
I don’t find a ground to stand.
মনে আছে? ঐ একমুখ
দাড়ি, মাথায় একরাশ চুল
নিয়ে নন্দনের চারিধারে
পায়চারি করতে করতে
উন্মাদের মত উদাত্ত গলায়
রবীন্দ্রসংগীত গাওয়া লোকটিকে?
কিম্বা কলকাতা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের
সামনে তাতাপোড়া রোদ্দুরে
'পিও ওয়র জিও, জিও ওয়র পিও'
বলে বিক্রি করা ঐ সহাস্য আর
বলিষ্ঠ ডাবওয়ালাকে? আরও
ছোটবেলায় দুপুরে পাড়ায় পাড়ায়
চীৎকার করে 'ঢা কা ই ক্ষীর'
বলা ঐ ফেরিওয়ালাটিকে?
গরমের সন্ধ্যায় 'লায়েগা, বোলেগা'
বলে শ্বেতবসনা ঐ সুস্বাদু
মশলা কচুভাজা ওয়ালাটিকে?
এঁরা সবাই গায়ক, শহরের শোভা,
এঁদের সুরেই ঘুমিয়ে আছে এক
নিশ্চিন্ত কলিকাতা।
আমার চোখদুটো অমলের মত
খুঁজে বেড়ায় এঁদের।
দেখতে পায়, চোখ বুজে, কান
পেতে শুনলে।
মনে পড়ে ছোটবেলার
হুড়মাটিচুড়, বন্ধুদেরিই
সাথে রোদ বৃষ্টি ঝড়ে,
পড়ার ফাঁকে কতরকম
আনন্দ আর সকাল বিকেল
নিত্যনতুন খেলা,
বড় হয়ে ধীরে ধীরে, বিষন্ন
এক হাওয়ার মাঝে হাঁপিয়ে
ওঠে মন, আনন্দ দেয় ফাঁকি,
পায়ে পায়ে চুপিসারে আসে
একা হওয়ার পালা।
I am not interested
in your wealth, dear
relative, I am interested
in you.
What you do with your
hard-earned money
is your choice, your
own point of view.
Relative! Didn’t you hear
the news? That there was
this renowned ghazal singer
who willed his fortune among
the most trusted men, women,
and children he knew?
His watchman, milkwoman,
newspaper boy, his faithful
servant, and his iron man,
(Ha! Ha!), the one who pressed
his dhoti and shirt anew.
These were the persons who
took care of him, and so he
exercised his due.
By not making his relatives
his beneficiary, he made none
of them a culprit.
So, dear relative, before you
leave the dais, take the cue,
rid yourself from fear and
doubt, breathe easy, be out
of your opulent guilt.
I am not interested in your
wealth, dear relative, I am
interested in you.
Note: This is a challenge we face mainly in
our country. There are these relatives who don't know what to do with their
wealth. Therefore, they live in perpetual suspicion and abject fear. I
sincerely feel for them and want to help them realize that they have every
right to do what they feel with their wealth.
World poetry day
is perhaps my day, many
verses, most of them
told ordinarily, they
fell on the leaves;
patient words
eager to be heard,
did they enchant the world,
I'd always wondered;
but who am I to think
of that, when all I could
do, in darkness or in light
was write, and only write,
shades of unseen hues
in black and white,
who am I to judge any
of them, good, bad, they
were my thoughts, my poems;
stories of angst, worries
ecstasies, pouring from
my heart, daisies, daffodils,
poppies came, went, and came
like an addictive game
adorning an unnoticed garden;
on this day, like any other day,
when all those written lines,
no longer mine, some fragrant,
some decorating branches,
of a large tree that sheltered nests,
invited the bees, and, nourished,
went wandering with wings,
chirping, dancing, flying,
falling, rising, reaching out in places,
I see the traces in rigid bondage,
a tragic sight of a curious page,
but strange that I have to read
them over and over again
to set them free.
চিন্তা, ছবি, বিদ্যা, ভাষা,
দেহ, আলো, জল, হাওয়া,
ঘটি, বাটি, ঘর, মাটি
সবই তো বরোড, চেয়ে কিম্বা
ফ্রিতে পাওয়া, তবে নিজের
ব'লে কিসের এত কান্নাকাটি,
মাতামাতি, ঝগড়াঝাটি,
এত কিসের বড়াই করা?
The intelligent mind,
unable to comprehend
love, without lust;
opulence, not kind,
a poverty-monger;
success, taking sides
professes failure;
in love's presence
existence experiences
abundance...
from the depth of
a bombed earth,
a green sapling,
unconditional affection
announces birth;
love, at the helm of things
dancing, swinging, singing
in the middle of all
human-made crises.
সবাই ওরা জিতুক হরি
আমিই যেন হারি, যাতে
তোমার বিশাল হৃদয়ে আমি
হারিয়ে যেতে পারি।
যারা ধনের ঘোরে ঘুরে মরে
তোমার ভাবনা ছেড়ে,
দেখি গাড়ি, বাড়ি, টাকা, কড়ি,
পেয়েও তারা আটকে থাকে
হাহাকার আর লোভের বেড়াজালে,
কেউ বা দেখি আর্তনাদ আর
কান্নাকাটি করে, কেউ বা আবার
অহংকারের অন্ধকারে ফেঁসে,
এক্কেবারে দিগ্ভ্রান্ত, হরিভ্রষ্ট পুরো
তাই তো বলি দু হাত তুলে,
তুমিই আমার আসল হিরে,
হরি, তুমিই আমার হিরো।
সংসারের ঐ যাঁতাকলে
সবাই চরকি কাটি,
হরির স্নেহ না পেলে যে
সকল ধনই মটি।
যদি কর্মে-মুখে-মনে
তোমার, শুধুই থাকে হরি,
তবে সদানন্দে নাচে গানে
ভাসবে জীবন তরী।
এই ভাসাতেই আসল বিজয়,
বাকি ভাষায় হিংসা ও ভয়,
বোঝাই আছে ঘোর অন্যায়,
কেবল হরি পেলেই সব সংশয়
মিটবে তোমার এক নিমেষে,
তাই এস সবাই মিলে মিশে
জেতাহারার চিন্তা ভুলে,
হরিধ্বনি দিই সকলে।
...has a rose ever
competed with a tulip,
or with a lotus,
has the sun ever fought
with the moon or with
any other stars,
then what is preventing us
from learning the loving
lessons from the celestial
school;
nature is a good teacher,
sad, the supreme creature,
a group of unteachable pupils...
I drew a picture
of a poet; the face,
an orchard, blooming
words, one strong chest,
a soft breast; one foot of
a beast, one of a dove,
struggling to balance
in a dancing posture;
one wing of an eagle
one of a Gabriel,
hair, half-forest
half neatly braided;
no hands, no eyes, no ears,
the lower portion, a tad
controversial, comfortably
covered with a black piece
of rag; on the whole, the
desperate brush tried to
capture the likeness of a creature
who’d sprung directly into adulthood,
of someone who’d converse in
verse, but forever peripheral, an
outcast, for the fear that the being
could cast a spell that’d end all sins;
therefore, thrown out as a sinful,
a strange outsider who would go
inside the human’s mind, in no
time
when the
work was done,
it was
difficult to make it lie
or stand,
for a moment I
thought
of not working on
its back,
I discovered to have
ignored the interiors too, that's
how incomplete a reflection is,
I mused; however, the image
in time acquired a tag;
a far-out version of an
ordinary
ag.
When you went away,
the spring left from
my backyard, the sun was
pouring heat in my space,
burning the plants, from
the soft green to a pale
yellow. My house, transformed
into a pyre.
The crows had their beaks
open for a drop of water
from the exhausted heaven,
trees failed to offer
a comforting shade of love.
I knew, almost instantly,
that a year later,
when my space will
again be in full bloom,
nature will be on fire,
spring will not return
to me, I will have the sun
smoking my heart.
I will see the fuming star
drying my barn.
On a full moon night,
I will sense the inevitable
darkness, with you gone,
will I be forever forlorn,
despite the chirps of the birds,
the songs of the breeze, I will
be doomed in a deafening
silence; if I don’t hear your
moving steps in my courtyard,
your voice in the homestead,
of what use is the spring then,
if I do not caress your
touching presence.
Lively friends, families,
celebrating ceremonies;
vanished in time,
cleared from the space,
like a dry leaf withers
without a trace.
Buried in the memory,
they remain forever,
with love and care,
treasured stories,
priceless, defeating
deaths for centuries;
some hidden, some
hang on the walls,
stored in the albums.
When I was beginning
my career, to get a good
job was a dream, thus
to get promotions, positions,
possessions mattered to me;
when I had them one after the
other, it was nothing.
A childless mother,
a motherless child,
what do they think?
Ask a mother with children,
and children with mother,
to them, it doesn’t matter,
it’s nothing.
When I wasn’t rich,
wasn’t able to express
myself in writing,
then, to own a car,
win accolades,
sign autographs,
mattered the world
to me, now when I
have them, it’s nothing.
When I was 10, I thought
of being in my prime
40s, but when I became
a forty-something, I missed
my childhood days; being
in my forties didn't matter,
it was again nothing.
O Budhha! Now, as I am
walking on the beach,
I see the sun rising from
the west, feel the waves
on the sea, in the air, in
the sky, I realise the duality
of nothing, with experience,
I know I have to repeat one thing
over and over again, like I
breathe, eat, walk, read, write,
like my organs inside, like the
stars outside; on being a practising
student of zen, I know that
nothing matters, and yet
nothing matters.
For you, O Budhha,
enlightenment is nothing.
War, an indoor game,
played outside,
by the outsiders;
soldiers, warriors,
caregivers,not the
stakeholders,like
a herd,in a cattle-field,
who don't score any
points unless they
thrive to die outdoors,
for a greater cause,
for self-destructive havoc.
War, a strange game,
misdirected by the
selfish, displayed by
the selfless.
