Beyond Land and Time

One Day Eight Years Ago

(Āt Bôchôr Āger Єk Din)

Translated by Faizul Latif Chowdhury

It was heard: to the post-mortem cell

he had been taken;

last night—in the darkness of Falgoon-night

When the five-night-old moon went down—

he was longing for death.

His wife lay beside—the child therewith;

hope and love abundant__in the moonlight—what ghost

did he see? Why his sleep broke?

Or having no sleep at all since long—he now has fallen asleep

in the post-mortem cell.

Is this the sleep he’d longed for!

Like a plagued rat, mouth filled with crimson froth

now asleep in the nook of darkness;

And will not ever awake anymore.

‘Never again will wake up,

never again will bear

the endless—endless burden

of painful waking—’

It was told to him

when the moon sank down—in the strange darkness

by a silence like the neck of a camel that might have shown up

at his window side.

Nevertheless, the owl stays wide awake;

The rotten still frog begs two more moments

in the hope for another dawn in conceivable warmth.

We feel in the deep tracelessness of flocking darkness

The unforgiving enmity of the mosquito-net all around;

The mosquito loves the stream of life

awake in its monastery of darkness.

From sitting in blood and filth, flies fly back into the sun;

How often we watched moths and flies hovering

                  in the waves of golden sun.

The close-knit sky, as if—as it were, some scattered

                  lives, possessed their hearts;

The wavering dragonflies in the grasp of wanton kids

                                    fought for life;

As the moon went down, in the impending gloom

With a noose in hand you approached the aswattha,

alone, by yourself,

For you’d learnt

a human would ne’er live the life of a locust or a robin

The branch of aswattha

Had it not raged in protest? And the flock of fireflies

Hadn’t they come and mingled with

the comely bunch of daffodils?

Hadn’t the senile blind owl come over

and said: ‘the age-old moon seems to have been washed away

by the surging waters?

Splendid that!

Let’s catch now rats and mouse!’

Hadn’t the owl hooted out this cherished affair?

Taste of life—the fragrance of golden corn of winter evening—

seemed intolerable to you;—

Content now in the morgue

In the morgue—sultry

with the bloodied mouth of a battered rat!

Listen

yet, tale of this dead;—

Was not refused by the girl of love,

Didn’t miss any joy of conjugal life,

the bride went ahead of time

and let him know

honey and the honey of reflection;

His life ne’er shivered in demeaning hunger

or painful cold;

So

now in the morgue

he lies flat on the dissection table.

Know—I know

woman’s heart—love—offspring—home—not all

there is to things;

Wealth, achievement, affluence apart

there is some other baffling surprise

that whirls in our veins;

It tires and tires,

and tires us out;

but there is no tiring

in the post mortem cell

and so,

there he rests, in the post-mortem cell

flat on the dissection table.

Still I see the age-old owl, ah,

Nightly sat on the aswattha bough

Winks and echoes: ‘The olden moon seems

                  to be carried away by the flooding waters?

That’s splendid!

Let’s catch now rats and mouse—’

Hi, granny dear, splendid even today?

Let me age like you—and see off

the olden moon in the whirlpool at the Kalidaha;

Then the two of us will desert together life’s abundant reserve.