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A few poems of Anubhav Tulasi
The Pact
The term of my pact
Signed with the sun
Is over.
I’m free.
Even freedom can’t reach me now.
In this life
you too can’t reach me.
I can be reached only by a hook.
To be a hook
You’ve to peg out and gyrate
On a phantom-wheel.
I’m sure to bite the dust too
Biding my time
Till you transform into a hook.
In the hearth of Hades I’ll warm myself
Cremate the hook with its entire lineage.
The hook-burning flames shall extinguish
In your eyes.
Every wish of yours shall turn into stars.
Your stars shall shed tears.
In no way tears reach me.
I’m free.
I’d signed the pact only with the sun.
But long before the pact
The very term of the sun had ended.
(Translation from Assamese by Krishna Dulal Barua)
Vincent
For days on end
I’ve longed for
a chat with you
Vincent
I do not know
your present whereabouts
You too haven’t let me know that
On that afternoon in our place too
over the green fronds of the areca nut trees
crows flew past
Tents of dusks
vague and quiet
were pitched
Over the vibrant golden expanse of wheat
the crows flew past
Maybe this is the same flight of them
Maybe the same ancient river
the same whisperings of women
trapped in the leaves of myth
In the still water
of the ancestral well
the shade of the cypress trees
Soaking the dirty sky in lie
I was thrashing myself
Thrash
Thrash
Like whiplashes
you came to my mind
and your river
That slice of hope
to have a chat with you
has gone down
in the western horizon
beyond the waterspout
(Translated from Assamese by Nirendra Nath Thakuria)
Post-mortem
Anubhav Tulasi
In the nine-year old chest
of Ruhul shot dead
at the Last Gate strike
two holes
Through the big one
I look at the sky
There the huts made of
mats of elephant grass
are being destroyed
at someone’s bidding
In the other hole
is set a telescope
through which one
can clearly see
the politics of the entire earth
Whenever eyes
are taken away
the true scenes
die down
and there sprout
wonders
( Translated from Assamese by Nirendra Nath Thakuria)
I can’t say
In no way I’ll go to the patient to ask after him
Despite myself
I go to the hospital and stand by the patient’s bed
Sitting on the patient’s bed I massage my limbs
As I live the collective life of all patients
I look at myself plaintively
Clasping one hand with the other I implore
Do something, do something
In no way I’ll be a pall bearer
Despite myself
sometimes I pick up some body
And in the neat pyre
I myself get into it
This time I cannot look at myself
Clasping one hand with the other
I can’t say anything
( Translated from Assamese by Nirendra Nath Thakuria)
Freedom
The wind is jesting
The fluttering flag
is guffawing
and guffawing
The flag has said to the wind
I was thinking of you
Chum
you’ll live long
This time the wind is laughing
which echoed in the flag
guffawing and guffawing
The ripples of guffawing
are wafting in the open
The wind asks the flag
Those who have flown balloons
and set pigeons free
haven’t they unfurled you
in the name of freedom
Have they unfurled you
or tethered you
For the next ten minutes
both the wind and the flag
kept silent
( Translated from Assamese by Nirendra Nath Thakuria)
Bow-Asana
He came after two at night
With two others
The night, after all, was hardly any night
Amidst the glaring halogens
Darkness ripped apart
He came after three at night
With two others
They were three in all, poachers of fish
God was wide awake
Jagannatha’s Rath Jatra had ended very late
Tossing and turning about
Time crept
Just then a mild rustle
Just then a faint tinkle
A bid to open a drum-lid
On the ice-bed the fishes too
Missed their sleep
God fishes and men
Men, fishes and God
Closed in stealthily
Instantly the two accomplices
Seemed to take wing
Only he pitifully tripped in his bid
God grasped him in a flash
The men tied his hand and feet
To his back
The fishes uttered near his face
‘Come on, have your fish, raw and fresh’
At the hands of God what could he resist
At the hands of men his head was to crumble
And the fishes would have their dips in his warm blood
To get reinvigoration
It was hard to tell
Whether the morning clamour was of birds
Or men
The police arrived to find in him
An ideal bow-asana
(Translated from Assamese Krishna Dulal Barua)
Oh Youth
Oh Youth
What are you doing on the footbridge
Nobody can afford to wait at Las Vegas
Nobody has any spare time to eye you
You are standing at the same spot
contrary to the common character of Las Vega
Against the stream
you’re plucking the strings of the guitar
The strings burst into a dance
you’re singing a song too
Who might be listening to you
You don’t know
if anyone is listening to you at all
Today while I was coming
across the valley of death
you were on my mind
Standing at the same spot
as you did yesterday
on the footbridge today also
have you played the guitar
have you sung a number
The light of the world denied you
You can shed light on earth
Keep shedding light today also
Oh Young star
(Translated by Nirendra Nath Thakuria)
The moon
A deer grazes at the heart of the moon
Very often the question arises
Who is a man
Who’s a woman
Whose is the domain
on the moon
Who aims the bow and arrow
to capture the deer’s mind
One group says
No man is on the moon
On the visible side of the moon
gleam the moonlit vulva
and the breast curves
The other group holds
The invisible side of the moon
is male-dominated
India and Pakistan
Woman and man
Between the bodies
of the two countries
lies the God-given
wall
(Translated from Assamese by Nirendra Nath Thakuria)
Day and Night
The world is a toy in the hands of a toy
The day itself is a toy, a toy of modern firearm
To make the world shake in fear, a toy held by the Sun
Perhaps the Sun also is a toy, Gods’ favorite toy
You and I argue, later we stop talking to each other
When I call God a toy, round like the Sun
It was as if your head would explode with anger
I was in a dilemma – if your head really exploded
Whether it would be Day or Night in my world
I could not understand anything
In order to end our argument at that point
And to make peace with you
I change myself along with the setting Sun
Then it was Night, your face bathed in brilliant moonlight
I turn ice cold on the other side of your face hidden from people
I feel like a toy
I keep thinking if I become a toy in your hands
Life will be successful
Since, the God of Day and Night is a toy,
The world is also nothing but a toy,
There is no soil anywhere on the world
Since soil itself is hard baked toy
If someone distraught with misery of this soil
Swells up like fresh flood and submerge the earth
How much water you would you be able bail out
Without access to the tools of Night and Day
(Tranlated from Assamese by Shah Ahmad Shah)
Malaise
I’ve spread so arid an atmosphere
that the tears of my wife have dried up
I’ve kept burning such a fire all the time
that the smile of my wife has burned up
I’ve created such a high pressure
that her blood circulation has got affected
I’ve fed her bitters after bitters
that she has gone off salt and sugar
I’ve set off blast after blast
My wife has lost her voice
In the ultra-modern microwave
I’ve so toasted my wife
that her mind and body
crumbles even at a rub
For crisp dollars of foreign trade
it is high time to exchange my wife
(Translated from Assamese by Nirendra Nath Thakuria)
Democracy of umbrellas
God hadn’t created rain
to wet the bras, panties and petticoats
of charming cheerful colourful beauties
Baser still or nobler still
maybe there is some other motive
Never nears the hard-hearted
only crushes the soft
If that be the sole duty of rain
the creator himself is sowing
the seeds of doubt
Perhaps on the strength of rain
God’s existence survives
Thus the curious are keen
to find the way out
through the mazes
In whose affairs has rain
played a spoilsport
Is it for the reason
lightning bolts fall upon the heads
Thus perhaps
the markets are on fire
from that fire God emerges
Clouds have been made after this emergence
Between the creases of white and purple hues
who plays hide-n-seek
why do forms rush into formlessness
Who’s moulding fire-horned arms
from bolts of lightning crushed to dust
Rebels and bourgeois scramble
to buy this infallibility
Thus God holds
an open fare of rain
With what intent
who holds open
over our heads
the democracy of umbrellas
(Translated from Assamese by Krishna Dulal Barua)
About the poet -
Anubhav Tulasi (1958) is a major voice in Assamese literature and a literary translator. His poetry collections include Naazmaa, Doron Phul, Jalamagna Drishyaavali, Kaabyapith, Nirgnaan Nepathya, Charaair Chakut Phular Bichanaa, Paanikaauri, Joi Jayatir Joi, Jui Chor , Jibanaandar Dehaantarar Drishya, Deo Cheleng, Dhekiapatiaar Pitree , Baraxunor Khetiyak, Matibhasha. His Poetry translations inlcude Anna Akhmaatovaar Kabita, Belisutaa Sonparuaa, Samparka, “Puraton Ei Binkhoni” and Najana Junuka.
He was awarded Munin Barkataki Literary Award in 1997, Senior Fellowship for literature by the Department of Culture, Govt. of India for 2000-2002, Excellence Award, 2010 (Austin, US); and Antorlipi Literary Award, 2015. He participated in several internationl literary meet including Jatiya Kabita Utsab, Dhaka, in 2001, 2011, 2014; SAARC Festival of Literature 2010,2017 held in New Delhi; Writers and Literary Translators International Congress, 2010, Istanbul, Turkey; International Authors Forum, Boston (U.S.A.) October 2010, Austin International Poetry Festival, Austin, Texas, USA(2013) and 8th Annual International Conference of Literature, Athens, Greece(2015).
About the translators -
Krishna Dulal Barua-
Krishna Dulal Barua, a teacher of English language and music, translates both fiction and non-fiction from Assamese to English. His published works include ‘Selected Poems of Nilmani Phookan’ and ‘The sword of Birgosri’ (novel) published by the Sahitya Akademi , ‘Select poems of Lakshminath Bezbaroa’ published by the National Book Trust of India etc.
Nirendra Nath Thakuria-
Nirendra Nath Thakuria is a translator, who translates Assamese literature into English. He was Associate Editor of Jaatra, Assam: Land and its people and Demcracy of Umbrellas. He is currently the Head of the Department of English, Pragjyotish College, Guwahati.
Shah Ahmad Shah -
Shah Ahmad Shah writes poetry in English and translates Assamese literature into English. He has translated several lyrics of legendary singer Dr. Bhupen Hazarika.
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