POST script JULY 01, 2012 SEVEN SISTERS NE Litreview 3 In these, the words that have caressed The orchards of my dreams, Is the grace of a life-style, The intimate warmth of time. I have no inventions of my own. Like a farmer, I roll words on my tongue To see how each one tastes. I hold them in my palm To see how warm they are. I know words are the lusty offspringOf man’s noble creation; But I am a mere poet And in these words th at I have rela yed From other shoulders, Is man’s cruel experience And the mauling o f history. These my words (for the younger poet) The poet’s voice rebounds against mercilessness -– An unconteste d echo. At the tip o f his pen quiver The promised poems, his entity. Threatened by a tenseness of nerves, In the famished poet’s feeble voice Is the hymn of grief, the freedom of art… Let me finish this poem like me; The message of blood dies strugglingIn the squalor of its denuded body, Holding a quaint banner of the future. Protect my right to hammer to frag- ments The aloofness of familiar words Or the stamina of the unvanquished sword That slaughters a futile realityAbout to die o f anaemia. For poetry: a single prayer In the way your spring suffuses the skyIs the horizon of a millennium of my prayers, From whose steps I see the destiny of my consequences, With heaven f ar, so far away . A terrifying inertia cle nches my heart In its teeth. Take me up the golden stairs Of love’s caravanserai nearby. The trees have forgotten their promise; Heaven is far, so far away. In my stricken tongue is my eternity, In my off-key prayer, God’s unequalled glory. Heaven is far, so far away. A post-prayer poem 1 With my hand on n eck-high sunshine Of the pregnant earth, I took stock where the water was And where the smell o f crops – The unvoiced prophesy of unborn days. ======= 2 Between my wishes and my waiting, A breezy winter. ======= 3 After all, death is also a craf ting: An unappetizing sc ulpture chiselled o ut of life’s granite. ======= 4 I broke the earthen flower vase Knowing that flowers blossom In the complacence of my wayward mind. Four poems You know very w ell This poet has nothing else – Just a lone shirt And that too parting at the seams. Love must be just like this: Baring covers to soothe the heart. Partaking Every day is a death for me; Longevity is only in the line of mypalm. This is how I get on. When I hear th e footsteps Of the dream fairy, I reflect: Life is more beautiful Than it can be. Postscript iNKPOT HIREN BHATTACHARYYA TRANS: DN BEZBORUAH Veteran journalist and for- mer president of Editors'Guild of India, Dhirendra Nath Bezboruah is also a writer and translatorI T was with support from bor- ta, or Hiruda, that I had start- ed my career in the Assamese music industry. It’s 12 years since I came into contact with him. There was a time when he would come to my house and listen to my songs. He always asked me to keep track of Hindustani and Bangla music in order that I could improve my singing. What make difference between his writing and the person that he is. After the launch ofBilot Tirebirai PadumorPahi Oi, an audio CD of eight time- less songs by Kamalananda Bhat- tacharyya, borta gave me one ofhis poetry books,Xugandh i Pakhi- la, which I happily read. He told me that every poem, in a sense, was a song. Howeve r, mu sic d i- rector Utpal Sarma later suggest- ed that I should singBokul phu- lar dare..., an old song ofborta, which was l ater inclu ded in myI ’M fortunate to have a close relationsh ip with Hiruda. I have been a keen reader of his poetry. Two strikingcharacteristics of his poems are visual content and lyrical charm. Hiruda’s poems are truly extraordinary but written o rdinarily, ea ch tellin ga short story without anysense of incompleteness. The way he selects words and uses short sentences to express various layers of emotions Jyotiprasad Agarwala did this in his songs such as Jilik a pakhire.... After reading a poem of Hiruda two or three times, one feels that the words ofthe poem spontaneously take on a tune and then echo in the deep recesses ofone’s mind. Hiruda had writ- ten five songs for my album, Mukoli; however, I took two: Mon komu wa tula r doreposua botahat ure... and Aji mur xajo r tora mont u Tarali Sarma H IRUDA’S poems are so beautiful. He uses short, soft words to d escribe variou s emo tions and f eelings. That is why his poems are different from those written byothers. I have sung around 15 songs of Hiruda, mostly po- ems from his collectionXugandhi Pak hila, including those for an audio CD, also titledXugandhi Pakhila. It’s tough singing songs adapted from poems. I remember Hiruda once telling me at a recording studio in Guwahati to read between the lines of his poems that were chosen to be made into songs. The audio CD, Xugandhi Pakh ila, was produced bythree former members of the ULFA. One of them told me that when they had worked for the organisation they would sit on rocks under a moonlit sky readingXugandhi Pak hila and listening to songs from my albumXuwarani. Duringthose days they, he said, always felt that they should make a cassette based onXugandhi Pakhila and ask me to singthe songs. I like some of Hiruda’s songs very much: Andhareandhare eti junaki uri ahi mur bukut xule..., Eta ajuhat palemoi gusi jabo paru…, Mur jibo nere mur moronere xojairakhibo... (from the album Tumar Gaan), Ahin toi ahili murpriyare...Aji mur andharote tupani bhagil... However, myall-time favourite is Eta ajuhat pale moi gusi jabo paru… Hiruda also likes this song very much. WHAT I like best about Hiren Bhattacharyya is the wayhe writes, a gift very few au- thors or poets have. His style of writ- ing is unique; he has a flair for enun- ciation of beautiful thoughts and emotions in fewer words. The beau- ty of his language lies in the syntaxhe has mastered, another reason why I a dmire his poems. Ev ery poem or song of Bhattacharyya feels like a story; from the Class V student to the 80-year-old, everybody can de- rive pure delight from reading his poems and listening to his songs. He is my idol in that he has taught me how to write or compose a song. I have, in fact, learnt many things from him. Words can’t describe what he means to me – ours has been a father-son relationship. Whene ver I vi sit h im, Ifind sheet s of paper, pinned together, on his writing table containing two to three songs, bearing the note “For Zubeen”. He has written very less, around 15 poems, during the last 25 years, but they are real gems. Hiren Bhattacharyya’s poetryencompasses all aspects of life. Not many people have penned poems on diverse subjects: love, sorrow, nature, patriotism and so on. I have sung around four songs composed by him, the latest beingHerou banhi... from the CD with the same title. These songs – Gane kiaane xuror xupane xupane, Herou banhi... and Bandhu...– have been received well by music lovers. I’m going to launch the Bengali version ofHerou banhi… soon. I’m doingeverything possible to help Bhat- tacharyya ’s recovery. H IREN Bhattacharyya is, without a doubt, one of the greatest Assamese poets, but the fact remains that he started off with lyrics. His first book, Rupali Nadi Xunali Xaku, which he published with late Jayanta Barua, was a compi- lation of lyrics. Basically, Bhattacharyya has a spe- cial liking for songs and this is manifest in the lyri- cal quality of his poems. He has written serious poetry with a musical touch to them. An example of Bhattacharyya’s enthusiasm for music is the making of a cassette of recitations of his poetry. I was in Tezpur then; he went there and asked me to sing two songs –Mur xunor xuleng oi aghunoreroud... andXatukhon xu ria noi… – for the album of recited poems. And I did that. The cassette be- gins withMur xunor xuleng... and ends with Xatukhon xuria noi... I had previously sungXou siris dalot bohi ejoni sorai... , another song by Bhat- tacharyya. Nature and patriotism are two recur- ring themes in his poems, and when he sings ofnature he goes into communion with it. Bhat- tacharyya’ s poetry reveals his political and social consciousness, revolutionary zeal, and progres- sive outlook on cultural traditions. He can express a very serious thing in simple, condensed language – a style of writing that many authors today try to imitate. When he started writing poems some peo- ple would wonder why he used short words or few- er sentences. Perhaps knowing this, he once said to me, “One day my poetry will find place in text- books. It would be easy for teachers and students to teach and read short poems”. He can liven up a situation with such remarks, witty, yet mean- ingful. Many people may not know that Bhat- tacharyya is also a cricket buff. When I stopped appearing in public as a singer for the sake of myteaching job and research work some people were eager to know why I d id that. After the release ofmy first album, Monor Khabar, which was pro- duced by Ramen Choudhury, Bhattacharyya told some people that I “was not out but had retired hurt”. Bhattacharyya and I are very close, in the sense that we’re on the same wavelength. Hiru da and his musical journey Hiren Bhattacharyya is renowned not only for his poems but also for his lyrics. His poetry is imbued with strains of soulful music. Siba K Gogoi interviews some of the artistes who have lent their voices to songs of Bhattacharyya, the ‘Poet of Love and Sunshine’ Birendra Nath Datta Zubeen Garg Pulak Banerjee Anindita P aul As I trudged through the darkness, I suddenly heard The clarion call of light. In my bones, preserved to make A devastating wea pon, I sensed the sound of a flute. Under my blood, within my bones The flute had lain hidden all these years. And there I had hea ped Some dried leaves of time. Who could ha ve cleared those leaves? Whose were those soothing hands? Sound of the flute THREE SCORE ASSAMESE POEMS Compiled and translated by DN Bezboruah National Book Trust, 2009 `35, 66 pages Paperback/Poetry
