আষাঢ়, কবি শ্রীজাত/The Rains by Srijato

আষাঢ়

কবি শ্রীজাত

ভেসে গেল আষাঢ়স্য প্রথম

দিবসে---

ক্যাপচার করেছ মম হৃদয়

কী বশে

নাওয়া নাই খাওয়া নাই

হাওয়া নাই কোনও

কেবল জলের

তোড়ে দাওয়াটি নিকোনো।

বৃষ্টি আসে ঝেঁপে,

আমি কান্না চেপে আছি

ঠাণ্ডা বুকে ঠেসে ধরছি গরম

পেঁয়াজি

কেহ বলে পথ্য খাও, দেখাও

ডাক্তার

কেহ বলে শুনে দ্যাখো বেগম

আখতার---

কেহ বলে ও কিছু না। বর্ষার

বিলাস

টেনে হিঁচড়ে নিয়ে যাবে।

কী জ্যান্ত, কী লাশ।

গুটিয়ে নিয়েছি প্যান্ট, হাঁটু

অব্দি জল

জোয়ারের

স্রোতে একা ছিপছিপে হিজল

ডুবেছে প্রথম দিনে।

বোঝে বা ক’জনই

কী ভাবে সাঁতরাই বলো,

সহস্র রজনী

The Rains                                            Srijato

Everything washes away in the first rain of the season

How did you capture my heart?

Now I am unable to bathe, eat or breathe even

My courtyard washed clean by the force of the deluge

 It buckets down, I hold back my tears

Clutching to my cold chest a hot fried snack or two

Some say, eat something healthy, or go see a doctor

  Some say this is fixed by listening to some Begum Akhtar

Some even say, this is nothing! Just a touch of rain fever

This is going to be your end, living or dead forever!

 I roll up my trousers, in knee deep water I stand

 In the currents

A lone slender sapling that submitted on the first day

How many do you think will understand my plight?

How am I supposed to swim this Arabian night?

আয়নার সামনে, বুদ্ধদেব গুহ/ Before the Mirror, Buddhadev Guha

I remember, it was the full moon night on which Lakshmi is worshipped. It was already quite cold in the forests and mountains that surrounded the little known town of Titirjhuma in Uttar Pradesh. I was travelling back to Kolkata on my holiday.

In those days I had to travel twelve miles by bullock cart to catch the train from Lathiyalia station.

I had started in the afternoon in order to be on time for the night train. With me was Mr. Chauhan. We had spread blankets on some straw inside the cart and were chatting to each other as we journeyed.

The full moon was shining brightly all around us. The unsealed road meant that the cart wheels and the bullocks’ hooves raised dust but it did not fly about as it was weighed down by the seasonal dew. There were fields of kitari and bajra on either side and in the distance were the Vindhya ranges, like an even wall along the horizon.

The various odours of dust, dew, moonlight, the beasts, the straw and the dew drenched crops around us had amalgamated into an unusual mixture of perfumes that filled the air.

In time we reached Tundu. The driver of the cart now took the way to the right. We got to the Titirjhuma plain at the foothills of the mountains. On one side lay the ranges and on the other were the Butbutia national forests.

Rajinder Singh was sitting at the back of the cart. He had a country blanket draped lightly about him. I still remember the colour. It had large black squares on a white background. Above the blanket, the soft unctuous moonlight fell on his angular but thoughtful face. He seemed to be thinking of something as he looked at the trees we were leaving behind, the vast moonlit plain around us and the distant mountains.

A white owl of the type said to be favoured by Lakshmi flew up from a bushy Acacia on the roadside and circled our moving cart in silence for a long time before flying back to the same tree.

Suddenly Rajinder spoke up, almost as if to himself, without looking at me, ‘How beautiful is our country, is it not? This country is very beautiful. If only we, all of the people living here could be like this country?’

I remained silent for some time before asking, ‘What do you mean by as beautiful as the country?’

He said, ‘I do not mean physically beautiful; if we could be all together beautiful, like humans are meant to be.’

‘What do you mean like humans? We are all humans. Aren’t we?’

Rajinder now looked at me, saying, ‘Where? Where are the humans in the country? The ones who deserve to be known? All of us, most of us are merely made in the human shape. Some rank blood, some water, a little fatty substance, some skin and bones – just a pile of junk in human shape. How many humans do you think there are in the midst of this multitude of people?’

The cart was approaching a culvert.

Suddenly the cart man said in a frightened voice, ‘There are some people sitting on the culvert with their faces masked from view. I think they may be robbers.’

The plains of Titirjhuma are infamous for robberies. There was not much they would be able to steal from me, although I had some clothes in my suitcase along with a little money that I had saved over the past year; that would be lost if they did.

The terrified driver stopped the cart.

Rajinder asked him angrily, ‘Why did you stop the cart?’

In answer the man said, his voice quavering, ‘Master.’

Rajinder used a profanity at him and said, ‘What is your fear? You have nothing on the inside or on the outside – what do you fear robbers for, you fool!’

He then said, ‘Keep driving. Take it right in front of them and stop. I will show them, they don’t know I am in this cart.’

The cart had almost reached the culvert by now. It is not as if I was completely unafraid, but it is hard to feel afraid when Rajinder is with you.

The cart came to a sudden halt. The men all stood up when they saw we had stopped.

Each of them was six feet tall. I suppose no one in the region was less than six feet tall as a rule. They all wore their dhotis tied on tightly, locally woven shirts and heavy wraps. On their feet were steel shod pointed shoes. Each of them carried thick staves as tall as them.

Rajinder threw a question at them in his sombre but sharp voice, ‘Who are you all?’

They all laughed at this.

On that moonlit field at Titirjhuma, with their heads covered they all looked ghostly.

They laughed and answered, ‘Your father!’

Rajinder spoke in a tone of unconcerned hatred, ‘You are all dogs! That is what you are.’ He then described their sisters with a particularly stinging local insult and said, ‘If you want to get out of this alive, let us pass. Or else you will be shot.’

The men did not move. They stood on the road as before. The bullocks looked at them with unblinking stares as they chewed the cud.

Rajinder stayed seated as he was, and without getting excited or moving in the slightest spoke again, ‘I never repeat myself twice, let us pass, you sons of dogs –'

Suddenly something happened to the men, much as a school of fish underwater, they moved as one and began to walk off silently towards the jungle of Butbutia in the moonlight.

I heard one of them say in hushed tones of respect, ‘Chauhan!’ Another one answered, ‘Let us go quickly! Today we have managed to escape death!’

মাতাল, শঙ্খ ঘোষ/ Drunk by Shankha Ghosh

মাতাল

আরো একটু মাতাল করে দাও।

নইলে এ বিশ্বসংসার

সহজে ও যে সইতে পারবে না!

এখনও যে ও যুবক আছে প্রভু!

এবার তবে প্রৌঢ় করে দাও-

নইলে এ বিশ্বসংসার

সহজে ওকে বইতে পারবে না।         

                     

                       

শঙ্খ ঘোষ

                       

**

Drunk

Make him drink a little more,

Without that he will not easily

Bear the weight of this world!

He is but a youth!

Then make him a little older -

Without that this world

Will not be able to bear him.

"শাড়ি", সুবোধ সরকার/Sari by Subodh Sarkar

"শাড়ি"

-সুবোধ সরকার

বিয়েতে একান্নটা শাড়ি পেয়েছিল মেয়েটা

অষ্টমঙ্গলায় ফিরে এসে আরো ছটা

এতো শাড়ি একসঙ্গে সে জীবনে দেখেনি।

আলমারির প্রথম থাকে সে রাখলো সব নীল শাড়িদের

হালকা নীল একটাকে জড়িয়ে ধরে বলল, তুই আমার আকাশ

দ্বিতীয় থাকে রাখল সব গোলাপীদের

একটা গোলাপীকে জড়িয়ে সে বলল, ‘ তোর নাম অভিমান’

তৃতীয় থাকে তিনটি ময়ূর, যেন তিন দিক থেকে ছুটে আসা সুখ

তেজপাতা রং যে শাড়িটার, তার নাম দিল বিষাদ ।

সারা বছর সে শুধু শাড়ি উপহার পেল

এত শাড়ি সে কি করে এক জীবনে পড়বে ?

কিন্তু বছর যেতে না যেতেই ঘটে গেল সেই ঘটনাটা

সন্ধের মুখে মেয়েটি বেরিয়েছিল স্বামীর সঙ্গে, চাইনিজ খেতে ।

কাপড়ে মুখ বাঁধা তিনটি ছেলে এসে দাঁড়ালো

স্বামীর তলপেটে ঢুকে গেল বারো ইঞ্চি

ওপর থেকে নীচে। নীচে নেমে ডান দিকে ।

যাকে বলে এল ।

পড়ে রইলো খাবার, চিলি ফিস থেকে তখনও ধোঁয়া উড়ছে ।

এর নাম রাজনীতি, বলেছিল পাড়ার লোকেরা ।

বিয়েতে একান্নটা শাড়ি পেয়েছিল মেয়েটা

অষ্টমঙ্গলায় ফিরে এসে আরো ছটা।

একদিন দুপুরে শাশুড়ি ঘুমিয়ে, সমস্ত শাড়ি বের করে

ছতলার বারান্দা থেকে উড়িয়ে দিল নীচের পৃথিবীতে ।

শাশুড়ি পড়িয়ে দিয়েছেন তাকে সাদা থান

উনিশ বছরের একটা মেয়ে সে একা ।

কিন্তু সেই থানও এক ঝটকায় খুলে নিল তিনজন, পাড়ার মোড়ে

একটি সদ্য নগ্ন বিধবা মেয়ে দৌড়াচ্ছে আর চিৎকার করছে, ‘বাঁচাও’

পেছনে তিনজন, সে কি উল্লাস, নির্বাক পাড়ার লোকেরা ।

বিয়েতে একান্নটা শাড়ি পেয়েছিল মেয়েটা

অষ্টমঙ্গলায় ফিরে এসে আরো ছটা….

Sari

The girl got fifty one saris for her wedding

Back to her mother for the ceremonies of the eighth day, six more waiting;

She had never seen so many together all her life.

On the first shelf, she placed all the blue saris

Hugging a watery shade to herself, she called it her sky.

On the second shelf stayed all the pinks

This time she caressed one in rose and called it feelings.

Peacock feather tintes, the three on the third shelf, like happiness rushing at her from three sides.

She called it sadness, the one that was bay leaf green.

That whole year she was given sari after sari

How would she wear them all in just one life?

But before the year was fully done, it happened.

Out for a Chinese dinner with her husband when

Three men came and stood, their faces masked

Twelve inches of steel they pushed into her husband’s belly

Carving up and down, then slashing right

Like an L in the alphabet; an L for life.

The food still on the plates, steam rising from the chilli fish

It was all political, said the locals at the time.

The girl got fifty one saris for her wedding

Back to her mother for the ceremonies of the eighth day, six more waiting.

One afternoon as her mother-in-law slept, she took them all out

Tossing them into the sixth floor air outside their balcony.

The older woman had dressed her in widow’s white

At nineteen she found herself completely on her own.

But even that white shroud was removed in a trice by three men on her own street

A newly naked widow runs, calling for a hero, ‘Save me!’

Followed by three predators in celebratory glee, watched by silent locals.

The girl got fifty one saris for her wedding

Back to her mother for the ceremonies of the eighth day, six more waiting.