By the Bharali | Mahim Bora (trans. Krishna Dulal Barua)

The sun, suspended like a bat
on the fish-net,
fixed on the Bharali*
was eyeing us all along.

A shoal of fries,
finding us beside,
sprang like a fountain of light.

The Bharali moved ahead
throwing at us, time and again,
sidelong glances
with the eyes of a fry.

Time quaked
as a pointer of seconds
on the caudal end of a wag-tail.

In the heart of that afternoon
spread out across the horizon
we lost ourselves,
When we discovered one another,
I was you, and you were the river!
Clutching onto the wag-tails rear
we remained fluttering.

*Bharali or Bharalu – a river of Assam.

Mahim Bora (6 July 1924 – 5 August 2016) was an Indian writer and educationist from Assam.He was elected as a president of the Assam Sahitya Sabha held in 1989 at Doomdooma. He was awarded with most notably with the Padma Shri in 2011, the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2001 and the Assam Valley Literary Award in 1998. Assam Sahitya Sabha conferred its highest honorary title Sahityacharyya on him in 2007.

Krishna Dulal Barua is a teacher of English language and music. He has been consistently translating poetry, fiction and non-fiction from Assamese to English. His translations have appeared in the Sahitya Akademi’s bi-monthly journal, Indian-Literature, Chandrabhaga, Indian Review, poetryinternational.org, the UK- based literary journal ‘Modern Poetry in Translation’, nezine.com and others. His published books of translation includes Selected Poems of Nilmani Phookan, The Sword of Birgosri (novel), Blossoms of Harmony (lyrics of Dr Bhupen Hazarika) all published by the Sahitya Akademi, Select Poems of Lakshminath Bezbaroa, published by the National Book Trust etc. He has to his credit two books on music, a collection of articles, ‘Contours’ and a collection of poems, ‘On and on’. He received the Katha Award for Translation in 2005.