Five poems by Hrushikesh Mallick have been translated from Odia by Snehaprava Das
AFTER THEY LEAVE
After they leave,
The tree in the midst of a bare field
Stands forlorn.
Not a single bird,
Nor the sound of chirping anywhere
Not a leaf flutters in the breeze,
No one speaks a word
After they leave.
The world is a meaningless void
When they are not there.
Flowers bloom and wither aimlessly.
Festive seasons come and depart.
The privileged and the poor come and go
Without making an impact.
Silence reigns everywhere and around
When they are not there.
Living in a pattern,
Like, in every moth-hour
‘Chhatu bhai’ riding back
From the village market, ringing the bicycle bell,
Or, farmers sitting on a platform in the evenings
And deciding which patch of the land
Would be plowed next morning,
Like, the moon coming up routinely
At measured intervals,
And discussions centering around
How ‘Gaya-bhai’
Escaped the wrath of the village-goddess
Last night by a sheer miracle.
Routine life continues
Like rice cooking tender in the kitchen-hearth
While cow-dung cakes are put
To smoulder in the cowsheds.
The regular pattern of living
Is dull and cheerless
In their absence.
Who are they, then? Who indeed?
They are the fragrance of the paddy-buds
In the farmlands by the hillside,
They are the Siju bushes that
Grow under the eaves in the backyard,
They are the sound of the clearing of throat
That inspires courage in a fearful heart
On a dark pathway,
They are the drumbeats floating in
In gentle waves from the neighbouring village,
They are the pallbearers that twine ropes
To make a pyre;
And, after they leave life loses its meaning!
WHEN THERE IS NO GOD
Once you join your palms
sitting on the bed
while going to sleep
or, as you wake up,
worries stop disturbing
your calm.
You are assured of the presence
of someone called God
who might break your fall.
But these are the bleak days
of God’s absence,
these days the headless bodies
saunter down the streets of the night
whispering to one another.
The dogs howl in a chorus.
The sounds of sermons or devotional songs
do not float in from the mandapa,
the air throbs instead with the siren
of ambulances.
As such belief is that
the God that holds
the trident and the mace
is omnipotent.
Why does that God stand dull
and lifeless in the temple now?
Does an idol in any temple
have the power now
even to chase away the stray dogs?
Is there a God in any shrine
who can hold open
its closed doors and by some miracle
turn auspicious
all that is ominous?
In these dark days when
God is not there,
if we take a fall,
we have to get up on our own.
We have to lean on our own mettle
and our own merit
in the moments of death or survival.
In the absence of God,
we have to commit ourselves
to the service of the distressed,
to feed the hungry
and nurse the sick,
give shelter to the homeless.
It’s time we repented our indulgences
without religious extravaganza.
It’s time we stopped
pinning blind faith in
the figures of stone.
THE LONE GIRL
The lone girl has nowhere to go,
She sits alone lamenting her loss;
Once upon a time she had
a country like we all have,
it was called Syria.
Its lofty national flag
soared to the clouds.
It had a national anthem that
sparked the spirit of martyrdom
in its people!
In the evenings,
perched on the shoulders
of her babajaan,
she watched the moon
in the sky of her homeland;
heard stories from her mother
that set her eyes rolling in wonder;
that country, her homeland is now in ruins
a vast, barren expanse,
littered with severed limbs.
Its air is sick with the smell of
tons and tons of explosives
there lay piles of disfigured childhood
in pathetic abandon
to tell the tale of a country that was!
No one had ever warned the girl
that her tomorrows will be spent
in makeshift shelters under the tents,
nor did she know that
her palms would join to make begging bowl,
and there would be merchants
to trade on
the perfumed void in her.
No one predicted that she would grow up
believing in hatred instead of love!
And when she would learn to ask
the whereabouts of her parents
the whole civilized world will
keep mute.
EYES
Just as I believed that all poems
which could have been written on ‘eyes’
are already written
your ‘eyes’ flashed before me
and what an amazing lot of trees
laden with fruits and flowers
and birds, they held!
I wondered where did you flick
your deep, boundless glance
from the corridors of the hospital
like a handful of floral offerings.
The anguish that glance held
was like the lost look in the eyes of a kid
who was rudely denied a father’s lap,
like a fresh bloom shying away
from the eyes of a honeybee
or, a streak of lightning flashing
in the overcast noon-sky
like a poor man’s last hope.
Your eyes are like the lines of a poem
that unfold a new meaning
at every other reading.
Your eyes,
like a strange horizon captures
the crimson of the dawn
and the gleam of a red silk sari
in a perfect balance!
Your eyes could transform a waste land
to a paddy field in luxuriant green,
at times they are moist with muffled sobs,
or, like a spear smeared in blood, at others!
What is more beautiful --
the bright loquacity in your eyes
or the rain-washed sunshine,
the mysterious mutter in your eyes
or a village enveloped in a wispy darkness?
THE HONEYBEE DOES NOT KNOW
The son writes poems.
His mother does not know.
‘You are rotting yourself through writing,’
She complains,
‘Did you write them?’
A girl-friend, looks at him in wonder,
‘Can you swear to that?’ she asks.
The boy writes poems
The street where he lives does not know it,
Nor does the village!
His young face does not sport a beard,
Nor have the creases appeared on his forehead.
There was not that distant look
Like the faraway stars in the eyes,
How could then he be a poet?
Who would believe that?
A man who picks up a quarrel with the fisherwoman
Could recite the brajabuli,
Or, the fellow weaving clothes at the loom
Can sing lines from Tapaswini
A poet is not supposed to have a home.
He sits under the trees
Amidst the anthills.
A poet hacks off the branch he sits on.
He does not have that worldly intelligence.
A poet is not pragmatic.
He begins a line at the wrong point
And ends it at a wrong one too.
A good poet forgets the right way of chanting
The mantra that would protect him from dangers
While actually facing them.
The mother does not know that
Her son is a poet; nor does the father.
The owner of the hut where the poet takes shelter
Does not know his tenant to be a poet.
The poet’s voice does not know
It belongs to a poet.
The reflection has no idea it is the poet’s image.
The lizard exploring the shelves
Does not know the ‘Award of Padmashree’
Carefully preserved there,
Was won by the poet.
The honeybee that circles the graves
Does not know that
The lines engraved on the tomb
Were the epitaph for the poet.
Glossary:
Mandapa is a pavilion.
Brajabuli is a dialect based on Maithali that was popularised for poetry by the medieval poet Vidyapati.
Tapaswini: A famous long poem by the 19th century Odia poet Gangadhar Meher.
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Dr Hrushikesh Mallick is a reputed Odia poet and writer. He has 13 Poetry collections. His first book in 1987 heralded a new era in Odia poetry. He has received Odisha Sahitya Akademi Award (1988), Sarala Award (2016) and Central Sahitya Akademi Award (2021).He is also an eminent literary critic and fiction writer. He served as President of Odisha Sahitya Akademi (2021-2024). He has been a professor of Odia language and literature from 2012.
Dr.Snehaprava Das, is a noted writer and a translator from Bhubaneswar, Odisha. She has five books of poems, three of stories and thirteen collections of translated texts (from Odia to English), to her credit.
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