Manush (Human) a poem by Masud Khan: Translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam
HUMANE
A cat has been exiled to a deserted island.
A black and lonely cat!
It was devouring milk and fish by breaking pots and pans,
Moreover, it wasn’t catching many mice;
Fed up, its master had stowed it away in a sack
And then dumped it in that island this morning,
Though the cat kept trying to leap frantically into the boat,
Dying to land in the master’s departing boat!
The cat then began walking along the shore.
Two or three crickets, frogs and flying fish
Kept stealing looks at it curiously,
Wondering who this new arrival could be
That had showed up in their midst suddenly on a hot summer’s noon.
The cat sauntered along the shore,
Circled the entire island counter-clockwise,
And then stopped to look at the horizon
With the worn-out look of a harried intellectual
Viewing a sand-drenched sea stretched out like a polythene sheet;
And then shivering like a dragonfly that had drifted in,
It became one with the green ceramic band in this dense habitation,
Flowing alongside the river like them—
A mere shade—
Remembering fitfully the pitiful visage of a young mouse,
Or the final tender glance its master had cast at it,
Remembrances of times lived free of all cares!
The master’s attempts to remote control it from afar is futile
For he is too far away, too much part of his former, humane existence!
Masud Khan (b. 1959) is a Bengali poet and writer. He has, authored nine volumes of poetry and three volumes of prose and fiction. His poems and fictions (in translation) have appeared in journals including Asiatic, Contemporary Literary Horizon, Six Seasons Review, Kaurab, 3c World Fiction, Ragazine.cc, Nebo: A literary Journal, Last Bench, Urhalpul, Tower Journal, Muse Poetry, Word Machine, and anthologies including Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond (W.W. Norton & Co., NY/London); Contemporary Literary Horizon Anthology,Bucharest; Intercontinental Anthology of Poetry on Universal Peace (Global Fraternity of Poets); and Padma Meghna Jamuna: Modern Poetry from Bangladesh(Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature, New Delhi). Two volumes of his poems have been published as translations, Poems of Masud Khan(English), Antivirus Publications, UK, and Carnival Time and Other Poems (English and Spanish), Bibliotheca Universalis, Romania. Born and brought up in Bangladesh, Masud Khan lives in Canada and teaches at a college in Toronto.
Fakrul Alam is an academic, translator and writer from Bangladesh. He has translated works of Jibonananda Das and Rabindranath Tagore into English and is the recipient of Bangla Academy Literary Award (2012) for translation and SAARC Literary Award (2012).
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