We Are All Fragments Of The Sun
Anupam Roy ———————- ————————————— ——————————— ————————————- —————————————————- ———————————– —————————————- ——————————- ————————– —————————- ————————— —————————– ———————- ———————————— ——————————— ———————————————– —————————————— ——————————- —————————————– ————————- adminhumanitiesunderground.org
That Brass Of Our Inheritance
Translations: Tarun Bhartiya ____________________________________ Raghuvir Sahay Laugh Laugh Laugh Instantly Laugh – you are being watched, Laugh but not at yourself because its bitterness Would be noticed and you would not survive it Laugh in a way that your happiness does not show As it would be suspected that you do not participate in the remorse And you would not survive it While laughing, don’t let anyone know who you are laughing at Let them all believe that like them you laugh A defeated laugh of intimacy Just as they laugh instead of speaking As long as that mighty round dome reverberates you can Speak to yourself When the echo is about to fade laugh again Because if found quiet, you shall be indicted for resistance If you laugh at the end then all will laugh and you can be safe Laugh but be careful of the jokes Jokes have words And words may have meanings ascribed by some person a century ago It is better to laugh while talking So that the talk looses all significance And laugh on those compulsory moments Like the assault on the destitute by the privileged When no one can do a thing Except for that destitute And even he often laughs Laugh laugh laugh instantly Laugh before they leave While shaking their hands With pleading eyes Laugh and remind them That you had laughed yesterday Coming Danger In this shameful and defeated age Go and find a mind Which does not flatter out of habit Go and find poverty Which asks nothing for itself And let it for once stare you in your eyes Do it right now, for the people have started flourishing Women would drink, men would eat – Ramesh There would come an age like this- Ramesh No one would have any point of view – Ramesh There would be anger but no resistance Except for petitions – Ramesh There would be Danger and Danger’s warning bell And the King would ring it – Ramesh Your Laugh The poor are being oppressed you said and laughed Democracy on its death bed you said and laughed Everyone is corrupt you said and laughed Everyone despondent you said and laughed So secure you must be I thought Suddenly finding me alone you laughed *** Dhoomil Lying Next To That Woman For the first time I felt That nudity Militates Against blindness Lying next to that woman I felt that where hatred and Candles have proved useless And the shadows of the melted Words have turned into faces Of menacing animals, my Poems survive on a diet of Mud and meat To rub out and Obliterate time It is not enough to have bouncing bodies While our faces face Leaking pots in the kitchen And night Does not become a path When water melons are being slaughtered inside us But our heads have Turned to stone on the pillows Lying next to that woman I have felt that home is Built on curses of small comforts And where it is forbidden to Walk with shoes This is grass i.e. green fear Enforcing my thoughts Is it not nice That my neighbour has lost All his teeth Like frostbitten peas Movements in his thighs Have collapsed And termites Have eaten through his ocular health Lying next to that woman (when suddenly the pumps fell silent in front of dingy houses) I felt that to turn Breathlessly into a forest next to a swamp Is not a man’s habit but his petty helplessness And there lives a coward mind inside me Which not only protects But is heir to my buttons *** Asad Zaidi East of West The poor knows nothing beyond his village The one who is less poor has seen the whole district Only the tyrants have seen the province and the nation They are the ones discovering novel ways of devotion Turning people into radishes and carrots And the poor into dried dark pickle Even the English found India very Indian As it seems these days to some Hindi Journalists Nineteen Hundred and Sixty Five I am talking about Aapaa[2] who is Talking about Ammi[3] who is talking of her Shauher[4] who was talking of that Officer who was Talking about the country who was talking About the war in a screaming voice Right now I am not going to talk of Pakistan Hindi Journalism I have a packet in my pocket It would profit you if you buy it View it and you would be surprised at your ability Feed it to a bad Muslim He would mutate into a good Hindu If a good Sikh eats it He would surely vanish in an instant Come on Sir, taste it, you shall be blessed with a grandson soon Poetry Reading I went to a place famous for its goons disillusioned prophets and unemployed half-poets It was evening and in my welcome a light was lit Audience trickled in one by one I kept getting their introductions – what they did what was their name Things I am sure to forget Students, clerk, few teachers even a postman and a Paanwaal That wretched Panwaadi He was smiling a very paternal smile and offering examples of self-composed poetry I spied a few old ladies some girls-adolescents Some Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh louts Extending their humble respects – O God how would poetry be saved in this province At last, clattered in wife of the city administrator to kick off the show (Recently I saw in the papers a small news item announcing her death reasons unknown) Ancestral Cannon Come sometimes to our place To view our glorious destitution There is this medieval cannon Difficult to use That brass of
Sweet Water, Silvery Ilish
Parimal Bhattacharya This is a translation from Abdul Jabbar’s Banglar Chalchitra, a collection of vignettes that capture the sights and sounds of south Bengal, its people and places, the dialects and daily rituals. ————————– O if I were a bird I’d take you to some other land. Loving you My bones have turned black. Late on a monsoon night, the sky pours in fierce torrents. Boatman Kalimuddi bursts into a raucous song as he lowers the hilsa net. A big tidal bore now rages upon the river like a herd of foamy-mouthed bulls. Kanai and Yaar Ali, his two mates, begin to dance with raised arms and swaying hips. They have just finished a six litre pot of toddy. Strong and frothy, it started to work as soon as it hit the belly. Now the stormy wind whiplash across their bare chests. Earlier, the cold had made them numb. They had called Kashem Ali on a nearby boat for liquor. By Allah, Kalimuddi uncle, not even a glass of it! Kashem had said. We’re smoking ganja to beat the cold. This fucking wind is too sharp. Everybody knows Kashem has hooch stowed away in his boat’s hull. Molasses fermented with calcium carbide and distilled hastily, for fear of the police, gives a clear hard liquor that burns down the throat. Toddy is much better. It is white as milk and soothing to the eyes. Kalimuddi checks the end of the net and feels the powerful tugs. Will they tear it off? He has weighed the net down with twenty-two bricks and has tied on top countless pieces of bamboo as floats. Altogether eighteen boats have dropped nets at Gadakhali. There are others at Raipur – quite a few ‘Rais’ or sluts do live there! – and also on Boatman Punte’s Whirl. The monsoon month has peaked and yet not much water in the skies. Schools of hilsa have suddenly arrived from the sea. Snow has melted in the mountains, discharging sweet red water. The fish are rushing into the river like crazy arrows madly labouring to release eggs. Yesterday Kalimuddi and his mates could get ten hilsas. The rain tonight promises more. They had sold the catch at the wholesale price of eight rupees a kilo. The wholesellers, in turn, had asked ten rupees. At one-and-half kilos each, it works out to fifteen rupees per fish: quite steep for poor people. Dariyar paanch peer badar badar! Hail to thee, five saints of the river! Everyone repeats the cry with raised arms. The tidal bore is here. Waves high as mountains toss the boats about like petals of banana flowers. The boatmen hold the paddle firmly against the heaving water. The thick wire tied at the end of the dragnet sends out a grating noise. Kalim uncle, we shouldn’t have dropped this fucking dragnet tonight – Kanai says. It seems a dolphin has got caught. D’you hear the noise? May be it’s timber from a shipwreck, Kalimuddi says. That’ll rip the net off. The mahajan will be furious, Kanai replies. Lightning flashes every now and then. The nets will be pulled up when the low tide begins. That would be around two in the morning. A knot of men and women are waiting at the riverbank, their lanterns twinkling in the dark. They are the wholesellers. They sit huddled under umbrellas and waterproofing, near the bushes of cacti and prickly pears. A weak rain dribbles from clots of cloud that drift in from nowhere and waste away. Everywhere one hears the rumble and gurgle of waters. At Boatman Punte’s Whirl, hyacinths, bits of straw, wood, broken canisters and other rubbish eddy about and are sucked in. Punte’s boat had sunk in that whirl. A hazardous spot. But a group of fishermen’s daughters have gathered there, catching topse, bhola, prawn, pangas and other varieties with their crude cloth nets. A few anglers have also gathered there. Red warning lamps flash on the floating buoys. A ship had once got stuck there on a sandbar. It had been a windfall for Kalimuddi and his mates. They had salvaged a lot of goods like timber, jars, drums, wheat, coal, liquor bottles and trunks. About fifty fishing boats lie in wait at the Bamboo-grove Ghat. They never ferry or catch fish. They sail towards the sea during low tide and collect contraband goods from ships. Occasionally, they do ferry night travelers across the river, but for fat sums. Some also carry kidnapped women. A ferryboat takes hours to cross the river from Anchipur to Uluberia. That is why, after the fishing season ends, Kalimuddi takes his two eight and ten-year-olds brats on the ferry line. He has to pay to the lessee of the service. For the government, leasing out the ferry ghats is a profitable business that involve investment. There must be shoals of fish towards Gadakhali-Naldanri, it seems! Kashem shouts. That’s why they have cast nets there. Bullshit! Kalimuddi replies. The river is deeper here, about fifteen fathoms. Do the fish dive across the sandbars, you bugger’s son? Kanai joins in. Whatever you get, it’ll go into the mahajan’s belly, he says. Five to seven hundred rupees worth of loans is there in the record book he keeps in his grocery. The boat and the net are his. One portion for the net, one-and-half for the boat, one for the boatman and one for the oarsman. It works out to two-and-a-half portion. In real terms he’ll divide the catch into five portions and take three of them. That means twelve fish for him. Of the remaining eight, the boatman will get four and the oarsmen two each. The wholesale price being eight rupees, a one-and-a-half kilo fish brings only twelve rupees. Twenty-four rupees for two. The mahajan will work up a temper and say –
From the Diary of a Desolate Immigrant
Shubha [translation HUG] One of the finest poets of contemporary India, these pages from Shubha’s diary were first published in Jalsa 3 (2010). It took HUG four months to go back and forth over the writing in order to come close to the myriad shades of meaning,intonation and diction that stamp this shining work of reflective art, the nub of a lifetime. *** Staying Alive Toast your state. Stay hidden. How many of them! Many. There may be many more. Almost like infinity. Numbers mean nothing. Do not get into that groove. Numbers cannot measure their schemes. Their schemas.That job is yours. Do your job. Be conscious. Secure your interests. If they celebrate their shamelessness, crack inane jokes, project their idealism by ridiculing their own selves, if they exhibit glossy, expensive dress, and laugh with a ho ho, you too laugh with a heehee and quietly save the vignette of a silence. Conserve self-confidence for yourself; between them and your own self, place a sheer curtain of inferiority. If they are able to plainly see your self-confidence, they shall make you their target. Within the circle of their haughtiness, their booming presumptuous voice, do not make your sensitivity apparent. Speak to them in their own language but in lieu of arrogance, fill it with a shade of astonishment, so that you can speak to yourself in your own language. If they stand up, you stand too, if they sit, do the same and secure yourself. Never be the first one to stand in a queue. In praise, in eating and drinking, in accepting something—ignore the largest portion and pick up a smaller one—the one with a soul. When they praise and commend you, do not take that as truth; keep a close watch on their hatred. Whenever they distribute workload, hiding your own wish accept the given load, and blend your wishes into it. You have to take a call on your own work. When they express their happiness, be with them like a badge of approval and save all your sorrows within your heart; do not let that bit vacillate. Without sieving and filtering, do not let their sorrows make way to your heart. Conduct the task of sieving when you are on your own, alone, and carefully let your own sorrows mingle with theirs. Sometimes they cannot identify their own sorrow. But you cannot safeguard yourself; in order to preserve your own sorrows, you have to share their sorrow. Keep those other eternally sorrowful ones silently in your heart, who hiding their own sorrows, are with them and pose like them. Remember, you have an alliance there. If you feel like crying and if your eyes well up in front of them, withhold those tears. Hold those teardrops and do not forget. Cry to your heart’s content when you are alone. It gives succor the way one receives after a bath. The heart turns clear and limpid, all gloom and murk disappear and every tense muscle relaxes.Just like in the rain everything is cleansed and drenched. Crying makes you clearly see your sorrows, your happiness. Then you can carry on the sieving-work unrestrained, in a spree. Never ever ignore your tears and never be oblivious to them. Nurture this natural cascade all alone; do not waste them away. Forgetting Claims After all, when you left home, it was not just in search of roti and love. Roti you have anyway and these days love is a compulsion, so that life can go on. When you were turned into a refugee, you did not just wander about seeking a home. No one casts about only for a home. At that point when you feel that you are helpless or lonely, think about all those people who are in a similar state. They are many and their ghettos and quarters are multiplying in leaps and bounds. You will notice that along with everybody, there are those too, who have been able to secure for themselves a good house and employment. But about material things they have acquired, they are never completely certain. Though not scared of natural calamities, they are forever vexed with the disquiet that something will be snatched away from them. They feel as if they have lost forever some kind of a group-song, a choir that can only be sung in a collective. At certain moments when they look at children as harbingers of hope, a threat, as if some impending menace runs through the hub of that hope. The two broken corners of the torn hope flutter above it. They tend to overlook and forget their legitimate claims. The people, who have been constantly rendered unwanted, considered burdensome and alien—how can they place any claim as their own? Their very existence is that of an unsanctioned, forbidden creature. In spite of all these tribulations, holding onto the earth as one’s home, one must keep on placing assertions. Only then can you think about justice perhaps. Though justice is virtually a forbidden area for you. If you demand it, you will discover that the preparations to chase you away from the forbidden area and to annihilate you have long been finalized. Relief Camps The quest of being reinstated after being uprooted has made you an immigrant, although there is no space for you to return, not even in the imagination. Had there been a secure place for you to come back to, you would not have been displaced in the first place. Often people are displaced and ruined in their own place. Sometimes, as soon as a girl child is born, she immediately realizes that she is alien to that place. At the time of her send-off after marriage,she advances to a new address, baggage and all, like a desolate-disinherited soul, bestocked with provisions, goes to a relief camp. Dispossessed people are repeatedly displaced. In spite of relief camps they continue to remain landless.