Sukanta Bhattacharyya: O Great Life
sayan bhattacharyya
The human spirit needs a
human body to be embedded in, in order to survive --
the spirit cannot, alas, survive in a disembodied
state when the body collapses. And for the survival
of the body, bread is essential.
The body cannot survive on self-righteous
preachings about the importance of love, beauty and truth either,
if there is no bread. And if the body dies, the spirit lodged in
it dies too.
A poet in Bengali, Sukanta Bhattacharyya (in spite of the same last name,
he is not related to me) wrote a poem about this. I will try to make a
translation from the Bengali, although, of course, poetry is really
untranslatable. In this poem, a hungry man who hasn't eaten for many
days is looking at the full moon in the sky and hallucinating that the
moon is a piece of roasted bread.
He Mahajiban
he mahajiban, aar e kabyo noy,
ebar koTHin koTHor godyo ano,
podo-lalityo-jhonkaar muchhe jaak,
godyer koRa hatuRi-ke aaj hano |
proyojon nei kobitar snigdhota,
kobita tomay aajke dilam chhuTi,
kshudhar rajye prithibi godyomoy,
purnima chaand jeno jholsano ruTi !
-- Sukanta Bhattacharyya
My translation :
O Great Life
O great life, do away with poems,
this is the time for rude prose, unforgiving,
let sweet alliteration be wiped away,
let the hard hammer of _prose_ ring .
No need now for poetry's tenderness,
you're fired, poetry! Now be quickly fled,
earth is prosaici in a world of hunger,
the full moon's like a piece of roasted bread !
Incidentally, Sukanta Bhattacharyya died in his
early twenties. The poem is partly autobiographical. He died of
tuberculosis, brought on largely through lack of sufficient nutrition.
I don't think he has been translated into English. He happens to be one
of my favorite poets.
Kalpataru Barman
In this context can someone translate ( if already existing please post)
the following lines :
Khudar rajjye-e prithibi gaddyamoi
Purnimar chaand jeno jhalsano ruti
Kalpataru Barman
> > My translation :
> >
> > O Great Life
> >
> > O great life, do away with poems,
> > this is the time for rude prose, unforgiving,
> > let sweet alliteration be wiped away,
> > let the hard hammer of _prose_ ring .
> >
> > No need now for poetry's tenderness,
> > you're fired, poetry! Now be quickly fled,
> > earth is prosaici in a world of hunger,
> > the full moon's like a piece of roasted bread !
> >
> > Incidentally, Sukanta Bhattacharyya died in his
> > early twenties. The poem is partly autobiographical. He died of
> > tuberculosis, brought on largely through lack of sufficient nutrition.
> > I don't think he has been translated into English. He happens to be one
> > of my favorite poets.
>
> In this context can someone translate ( if already existing please post)
> the following lines :
>
> Khudar rajjye-e prithibi gaddyamoi
> Purnimar chaand jeno jhalsano ruti
Sorry for the mistake. Interested in translation of the following
lines :
Swapner kusumkali hoito ba phutechhey kanan-e,
Ami ki khabar raakhi ? Ami baddho thaaki grihakoney,
Nirbasito mon niye chirokaal andhokaarey basa
Taito muktir swapna amader nitanto durasa .
sayan bhattacharyya
sayan bhattacharyya <bhat...@skynet.eecs.umich.edu> wrote:
> earth is prosaici in a world of hunger,
> the full moon's like a piece of roasted bread !
Oops, I made a typo. Should be "prosaic" instead of "prosaici" !!