O’ forest, O’ city

The curfew time is on.
The night sky has soaked up even the last rays
From the loose end of the sun-bathed city;
Quiescent death descends. In the city’s veins I perceive
The ruthless death of reptiles in the epileptic forests
Of Kaziranga and Doboka … a serpentine life;
Each day is a fugitive — the neon-lit evening’s
Red and blue pallid face
Hangs on Hena Madhubala and Alakananda

    ***

Streets and bylanes, alleys and avenues
Remain dark with dumb agonies
The serpent of slippery death slithers past under the feet
(Light, where’s light)
The throbs of throttling traffic afar
Bring complex anxieties of fear and hope;
(In the forest the eyes of tigers and fishing-cats glow)

Life scrapes by. Yet it survives.
And so do the riddles of the alleys of livelihood
We’re the offsprings of ambrosia
Drenched in death, O’ city !

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

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.