Once we went aboating
On the Ganges…………
The pale winter moon rose above the old cemetery
We remember we talked
We could not hear each other
Though the wind was not disturbing.
I do not remember what the sky looked … [Read the rest...] “Sketches | Navakanta Barua”
Navakanta Barua
Nabakanta Barua (29 December 1926 – 14 July 2002) was a prominent Assamese novelist and poet. He was also known as Ekhud Kokaideu. As Sima Dutta he wrote many poems in his early life. He also won the following awards
- 1974: Assam Prakashan Parisod Award, Mur aru Prithibir
- 1975: Sahitya Akademi Award to Assamese Writers, Kokadeutar Har
- 1976: Padma Bhushan, Literature & Education
- 1993: Assam Valley Literary Award
- 1998: Kamal Kumari National Award
Shillong at Eventide | Navakanta Barua (trans.)
The somber even descends
The perturbed alarm of a weary clerk’s libido
In the eyes of the township
A nurse’s infirm inertness from sleeplessness;
In the interstices of the naked upright pines
There’s no sun; the sun’s sensation.
Senseless scribbling … [Read the rest...] “Shillong at Eventide | Navakanta Barua (trans.)”
The Black Girl in Search of God by Navakanta Barooah (trans.)
Alighting from a Negro play
Cigar between his teeth
God pronounced:
Let there be light and light
The match-stick set the spring woods alight
Flowers and blood
And the hours of green darkness
Death and agony of the poison-blue sky… [Read the rest...] “The Black Girl in Search of God by Navakanta Barooah (trans.)”
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi by Navakanta Barooah (trans.)
Dreamer of paradise
Poet of achievement
Would you listen to solicitations
Of acrid tongues?
Would you revisit
To make this utterance:
you’d come but once and left forever
Never again to return!
Erecting a pleasure park
At Rajghat, Barakpore
we … [Read the rest...] “Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi by Navakanta Barooah (trans.)”
Does it Come to Your Mind, Arundhoti – by Navakanta Barooah (trans.)
On monsoon nights does your poet come to your mind,
Arundhoti,
The fragrance of the afternoon in your hair-knot
Effaced by the damp light
Does it, does it come to your mind,
Arundhoti?
Poetry obscure to the moonlight, clouds, affection, … [Read the rest...] “Does it Come to Your Mind, Arundhoti – by Navakanta Barooah (trans.)”
Ratnakara | Navakanta Barua (trans.)
Within this dark shell
All emptiness is substantial
The sky and the earth reach me
In all elastic opacity.
Severely sensuous is this mystic opacity
A self-indulging hermaphrodite god
The earthworm told me; the leech confided.
Self-indulgence begets nightmares
Bonny … [Read the rest...] “Ratnakara | Navakanta Barua (trans.)”
Cloistered, The Gloom, Tete-a-tete (3 poems) by Navakanta Barua (trans.)
Cloistered
The fossil heaved its stony sigh
Moaning:
God’s failures have caused,
All his tears to helpless man.
(First published in 1970)
The Gloom
Last night
Someone poured ink into Umiam
How the streetlights emitted darkness!
The whole day the … [Read the rest...] “Cloistered, The Gloom, Tete-a-tete (3 poems) by Navakanta Barua (trans.)”
This China is an Alien Land | Navakanta Barua
This China is an Alien Land
l know of a far country
Knew their open minds;
The wide desert and the high hills
Were pictured deep and on the rock
Of our memory, and on their
Many a gray sheet.… [Read the rest...] “This China is an Alien Land | Navakanta Barua”