Daud Haider's Poem (long)
Souvik Bhattacharyya
shobai-ke janai shubho nobobarsher antorik preeti o shubhechchha
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Here is some stuff I read while I was in Calcutta - thought that
this may be relevant to this group .. although this is not going to be an
original posting, still some of you may like it ..
It was his poetry that forced Daud Haider into exile from Bangladesh. The
religious fundamentalists would settle for nothing less than his scalp (comments
from newspaper reports, no flames please!).
Daud today lives in Berlin (as of Nov. 1990) where he lectures on comparative
literature and writes on the craft of composing poems, besides commenting on
modern literature.
The poem that follows has been translated from Bengali by noted
literateur Lila Ray:
An Eddying Sun
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Life wakes from death
in homes of men
and lands of the living.
The image of you I drew
in protest against speech
vociferous and loud,
evokes life in the dust
of weary middle-age
and in youth that is past.
The song I hear everywhere
is the same, the song of
those whose hearts have been
broken over and over again
in the past and in the now.
Shackled no less than in
primitive times there are
those who set up empires in
their own interest to a
measure that is indescribable.
2
Time and time again
life is reborn of death.
why fear death then?
Ah Bangladesh! Eternal Bangladesh!
Through an eddying sun,
in the death of the living,
the outer enters the inner.
I make my house in the outer.
There is no release for me
in the morgue's perpetual festival
nor in the recollecting rising
from memory's profundities,
in any country, here or there.
My release can only come
from the just claims of my soul
in song and song's festival.
3
Into my being I have taken
your enormous shadow,
freedom's heaven is lost
in the twilight of evening
There is no freedom in the
exile of our own town.
The thudding of drums is
unseasonable till salvation dawns.
Is it to desecration you gave yourself
in yielding to life's music?
4
Pretty pictures in every house
announced the end of days
of submergence, pictures
pretty in the eyes of the world,
depicting flowering forests,
pictures in our hearts, scenes
from truth's flowering garden.
5
Air and water intermingle
in the fields of our knowing,
in the lands of our minds -
the dew of freedom dissolves in despair!
This is our country! Our bountiful country!
Our time was up long ago
our days have passed in dalliance
in the gay woods or untimely awakening
our days have passed in a dance of doom.
Our time was spent under
the gratified eyes of the maestro.
This is our country! Our bountiful country!
In the exultation of a desperate freedom
and an arrogance that is barbaric
fresh young blood is shed in Bangladesh,
beautiful land of dark green grass.
6
Has a signal in our divided lives
stopped the singing? Birds fly.
O bird! don't close your wings yet!
Our days pass in trilling song,
Our days pass in famine and pestilence
Our days pass in fits and starts
Our days pass in constant rebuffs
Our days pass in thundering clouds
Our days pass on a solitary shore, with hope.
This is our country! Our bountiful country!
Who is wailing on the cremation ground?
Who is making all that noise?
Will flower water cleanse a corpse?
Who plays the flute in the jasmine garden?
Shall I remain an exile forever? Who loves me? Whom do I love?
- I shall make it known to the public now!
In the gratified eyes of the maestro
serpents spread their restless hoods.
I have therefore built my house
in the middle of nothingness and
my home lies along the stretch
of an empty horizon.
In the beautiful land of dark grass
green Bangladesh, will you shed
fresh young blood again?
*******************************************************
Souvik Bhattacharyya
s0b...@summa.tamu.edu
*******************************************************
Jawahar Tembulkar
I wish the original Bengali poem had been posted too. ( I do realize
the effort that such long postings require..... ) I enjoyed the
translation immensely.
Thank you.
Regards,
Jawa
--
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* Jawahar M. Tembulkar, Computervision, R & D, *
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