All I want is peace-- Silent peace. Is that too much to ask for?
I had my dreams I had my expectations Unbridled and unaware Brimming and spilling over….
But love’s young dream Had to grow up. They grew up into illusions! My acre of grass Stretched into monstrous palaces! Ur chocolate brown eyes Turned into an oasis…. Or was it a mirage?
And then the carnage started….
Shhh…. When u sing, a thousand bells Ring in my head It makes me wanna scream my lungs out-- Don’t break me over and over….
this is the translation of a poem by Joy Goswami, from his Sahitya Academy Award (2000) winning collection, পাগলী, তোমার সঙ্গে titled হাঁস.
Did u not know, serenity is in fact a season of rain?
Nobody did tell u, such a season he is
Who can throughout the year, soar across at his will
Soars across the sky
Today, it rains here a little, and tomorrow, the sky there is overcast
Accompanying that, blizzard and storms keep blowing
I close my eyes and I see, soon as it starts pouring
Kids all sprint towards the fields, and leaning by the mud-walls
And tubewells, the village women, whisltle out to their ducks,
From the gullies and the gutters: choi-choi, choi-choi,
Choi-choi…. in the Bengal of a century back,
A childhood friend of yours, used to whistle to you, choi-choi
And tease you, do you remember?
Today, in this life, u are the duck of a cold country, from seas unknown
to unknown seas u swim— across ocean after ocean
u soar away to distant lands….
But this time, even in this life,
Someone is calling out to you, by that hundred years old
Neak-name of yours, in complete silence is he calling you! Choi-choi,
Choi-choi, choi-choi, — and maybe u hear nothing,
Nothing at all, isn’t it?
Friday, November 20, 2009
Everything is beautiful, u just gotta have the right Point of View. This is what came to my mind, when yesterday afternoon i was spending a lazy hour, locked out of my hostel room coz i had conveniently forgotten the keys to my room while going for my morning class. In reply to my earnest call for help, my roommate replied with a promise to be back ASAP.Thankful to the bright sun on a winter afternoon i mused on the beautiful pattern that the sun and the shadow had decided to paint on the walls of that lonely corridor. The characteristic exposed brick structure of jnu buildings and the play of the light and shadow on them, not to forget, the mellow warmth of the sun on my sleepy-head made it too fascinating a moment to let go....if u dont find the magic in this moment that i tried to capture, you probably are not facing your end-semester examinations and deadlines for term-paper submissions.
In the waters of my first ever rains, I floated a boat, in the frolics of boyhood. That stream of water found its way Into some nameless river; It lost itself in some faraway sea.
O ferrier, o dear, Have you seen her anywhere? The boat I made from the pages of my innocence.
My firt gift, a canvas. My first ever piece of verse. The thousand dreams of my boyhood. Have lost their way into some sea.
O ferrier....
My boat, the like of the blue above, Floats away to the rhythms of the waves. Lonely somewhere in the oblivions of the sea, Following the sound of your melodies.
On a ruddy sun-baked evening, In the waters of a crimson sea, Away, she floats away,Dream-laden my paper-ferry....
O ferrier, o dear, Have you seen her anywhere? The float that carries the dreams of my innocence.
Last night as she stood On the lonely terrace, Listening to that voice Throw icicles at her, Not one missing its point-- Her eyes fell on the name I had once scribbled On those shabby yellow walls, While I got soaked In the warmth of your voice; And she heard a groan As his voice faded away..... I looked on as she fell ! Tomorrow, when i go up again, She will still be there. Getting soaked in the icicles The grey sky will throw at her. Not one, will miss its point.
