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You are here: Home / Poetry / Shillong at Eventide | Navakanta Barua (trans.)

Shillong at Eventide | Navakanta Barua (trans.)

January 9, 2011

      

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 by clouds
Of a dusky blue sky?
The maze of Laban’s zig-zag paths?
The colour of the fog wipes them off
With betel-spittle and smoke and whistling sounds
This Shillong at eventide mocks herself.

The lens-sharp eyes of a foreign diseased chantress.
In an illumed chamber of Hotel Pinewood
Brim with dreams………..
A fur-coat of Kashmiri wool
Covers the gestures of a Saree
Round a brittle frame;
The mind however is on a fast
So are the memories of the plains……
(The Khasi belles break the hills’ slumber
Strawberry-smiles in their eyes glitter
No colour in the skies
No poetry in affinity
The fog wipes off the rainbow
At eventide, Shillong,
with the cramped broiling eyes
Of a circus-tigress,
Impales the heart!

Authors : 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

Related posts:

  1. Does it Come to Your Mind, Arundhoti – by Navakanta Barooah (trans.)
  2. Cloistered, The Gloom, Tete-a-tete (3 poems) by Navakanta Barua (trans.)
  3. Ratnakara | Navakanta Barua (trans.)
  4. The Black Girl in Search of God by Navakanta Barooah (trans.)
  5. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi by Navakanta Barooah (trans.)

Categories: Assamese, Poems, Translated Poems Tags: Assamese Literature, Assamese Poetry, Krishna Dulal Barua, Navakanta Barua

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