Beyond Land and Time

Anupam Trivedi

(Ônupôm Tribєdi)

Translated by Golam Mustafa

Now, at this winter night, shows up Anupam Trivedi’s face;

Although he is no longer inside the big round belly of the earth

Bodily, in the darkness around the table this winter calm

Reveals the tale of this unforgettable man from the crowd

Of a world of dead and alive; although from the stack of books

on the table

It seems that they, from Plato to Rabi and Freud, had exhausted

Their thoughts to fall asleep in the wrapper of dew

In this wonderful winter—to rouse them from sleep

Did not Trivedi by locking himself in, unlock death here

And in the world hereafter? Cult worship, mystic Jew;

Rising of Jesus—birth and death of the tree of knowledge

Until Hegel and Marx—all these were taking him to two

opposite ways

By pulling the ears; and then by putting hands inside the pockets

And eyes frowning he found soil and human love sweeter

Than even robust knowledge; better than love is a totem:

Like the drawing of a camel—in the heart of a woman;

With ardors in the face moving forward to conquer the mirage;

Wrapped in a cream color sari; a closer look could reveal

An exquisitely beautiful southwestern woman;

The corner of the end of her loincloth to be found nowhere;

Always moving around the North, Bandel, Kashipur, Behala or Khurut

Stalin, Nehru, Bloc and Roy on the head, is there any room left

Beyond the three feet measure in the heart of this sacrificial victim?

If so, ‘tis not love; reasoned Trivedi’d insight.

The opposing dialectics pull our ears toward each of them

And that keeps us alive—they pulled Trivedi even harder.