Beyond Land and Time

 

 

 

 

Of 1934

(Unishshô Chautrishєr)

 

Translated by Golam Mustafa

 

 

A motor car

Brings in misgivings.

The motor car is always a gloom;

Though in the bright paths of day

In the gaslit ways of night

Among the children of light

It is named first.

 

A gloomy object:

In the clear morning

While treading across the green fields of peas

Suddenly I look in wonder

Along the red brick-dust road

Under the two Hijal trees

A motor car of 1934 model

Brightly shining and running in wind-speed.

 

Travelways, fields and dew slowly disappear

The dawn against odds preferred to keep aloof like a bride

Meadows and rivers seem effortless

Suddenly out of determination.

While this motor is the pioneer

It speeds

We should follow it;

Whither?

The path of a motor car

Has always been a misgiving to me

Like the gloom.

 

At the stand

At the east and the west of the vast city park—beside the footpath

Motor cars

Noiseless.

 

The hood at the top

The brushed heavy seats inside

Polish, steering wheel, headlights

With what else is it so motionless?

Even a tree in the park of Kolkata is still for something

I myself am fixed for something else;

The stillness of the motor is a gloom.

 

A gloom:

Thousands of cars are speeding away in darkness

In ParisNew YorkLondon, in BerlinViennaKolkata;—

Like innumerable cables

Across the seas

Like meteors at night

Like a non-stop cheetah in the night of the forest

Like innumerable delusions of unceasing determination

and readiness of men and women

They also are moving;

Whither are they moving I know not

 

A path of a motor car—a motor car

Has always been a suspicion to me

Like darkness.

 

I do not want to go anywhere so fast

Whatever my life wants I have time to reach there walking

Have leisure enough to stay after reaching.

Let others come up to bear the excitements of wonderful feats

I do not need those

I am a grossly stationary man

May be in this century

Under the stars.

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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