Beyond Land and Time

Beggar

(Bhikhiri)

Translated by Faizul Latif Chowdhury

‘I got a dime at Ahiritola

I got a dime at Badur Bagan

If I could manage just one more

I would then walk away, no more self-demeaning,’

             —he said, stretching out his hand in darkness. 

As if a one-eyed man with the whole body at work wanted to keep on weaving;

Yet it turned out to be a saw in a Shakhari's crippled hands.

'I've found a dime from around Mathkotha

I've found a dime at Pathuriaghata

If I can secure just one more

Then paddy will be husked in a mill, not dheki.

            —saying that he brought his face out

to the gas-lamp beam.

Yet amidst the crowd—along the Harrison Road—persists a deeper concern.

A world's wrong; from a beggar's blunder; a world full of flaws.