Five poems by Rohini K.Mukherjee have been translated from Odia by Snehaprava Das
AT THE MYSTICAL SANCHI
An unknown voice beckons
At the early hours of the morning.
Moved by a new surprise
Buddha relapses into meditation.
A crystal dawn, cold as marble,
Is traced
On his hands and feet
And his eyes and forehead.
Some instant, invisible signal prompts him
To turn on his side and sleep.
After Buddha’s Nirvana,
Calm settles in the valley, slowly.
Thousands of
Branches and branchlets
Radiate blissful divine light.
The trees too, in a lavish growth,
Spread out everywhere --
From the earth below to the sky above --
And meditate!
THE EXECUTIONER
No one could predict
The next scene.
But in the one enacted now
The executioner has
A prominent presence.
The executioner stalks the moon,
His face hidden in the veil of clouds,
Knife in hand, a gleam of smile
On a phony face,
A sharp, keen gaze under the glasses,
Exuding the smell of
An expensive perfume.
The indistinct footfalls may
Prompt one to flick a look back
But there would be no one behind
Only clouds clad in midnight blue
Sailing in the sky.
From somewhere far floats in the music
Of a mountain stream.
Slowly, sorrow dissipates and a
Path opens up for the spring,
A wonderland of fairies.
In his unguarded moments,
The knife in the executioner’s grip
Glitters in the furtive moonlight.
Any moment that poison-coated knife
Could find the moon’s throat,
The moon knows that well.
But it forgives,
Because it also knows well
That the executioner cannot
Hide for long
And will be trapped in
The moonlit garden of tangled clouds.
THE DEATH OF A HAPPY MAN
One day, the eyes lost sleep
And all the locusts flew away,
Not one spectator had guessed
That one day
The man will sprawl out on
On the sea beach sands
Washed away by the waves
From distant lands.
The eyes lost sleep one day.
The flock of locusts flew away.
But no one could guess
The pains, the sobs
That seared that forlorn soul.
Petals drifted in piles
To make him a delicate shroud.
The smell of sandalwood came wafting
In the sea-breeze from the north.
Seagulls flocked around the body,
Unintimidated by the crowd in the beach,
Drowning the voice of
The living men there
With their loud squawks of dissent.
Ooh! What a long wished-for
Happy death
On a cool and blissful sea beach!
After the flock of locusts flew away
Carrying all the dreams back
On their wicked wings,
The eyes lost sleep!
ANKLETS OF THE NIGHT
There is still time for the nightfall.
But the air tinkles with the sound of
The anklets of the night
As if someone is retreating from
An ineffectual, moon-washed garden,
As if someone from the grave
Watching the landscape,
Or someone standing at the riverside
Hums the tune of a departed season,
Or someone hurrying aimlessly away
To escape the approaching dawn.
It is not yet night,
But the night’s anklets ring.
You are probably returning
To your shelter of old times
In search of a new hope.
Just take a look behind to see
The painting of a conflicting wind
Fluttering across the courtyard.
It is not yet night
But its anklets begin to jingle in the air.
How cool you appear in your
Evening chanting of the mantras!
How calm and steady you are
In the pure fragrance of the descending steps
As you set out on the journey
Holding your heart on your palm
Like a burning clay-lamp.
May be when you arrive there
The dawn around you would be sonorous
With the notations of Raga Bhairavi.
There is still time for the nightfall
But the night’s anklets tinkle in the air!
THEY DID NOT COME
I waited for them, but
They did not come,
I waited all this time in vain, and
Knowingly, let myself fall a victim
To the first rays of the sun.
The sun’s whiplash spurred me on
To the jungle.
It forced me to cut wood
And tie them in bundles.
The hunger of the sunset hour
Prodded me back to where
I had started.
The smell of soaked rice, and the aroma of
Onions and oil
Drifted thick in the air of my house.
The sun came in, an intruder,
Sat by me and watched.
Then it devoured all the food,
Leaving nothing,
Not even a single dried-up onion-peel.
Because they did not come,
For me the morning was
Meaningless in its futility.
I knew I was never one
In the list of their ultimate interests
When their tenure of life here ended.
The footfall of the light
Trod easy on my skin.
Days rolled on this way
In sun and light.
The sun was everywhere, all the time.
Whenever the door opened,
The sun stood there.
When the meteor came shooting down,
When words rode over
the waves of sleep to float in the air,
The treacherous sun always appeared.
And for me, there was
No hope of their coming back.
But, one day as I leapt up in a hurry
At the Sun’s summon,
I discovered the Sahara Desert
That I believed had
Remained hidden in my
School Geography book,
Lying face down all these days
Under my own hooves!
Rohini Kanta Mukherjee has authored, edited and co-edited several volumes of poetry and short stories in Odia and English. Many of his poems have been translated and published in various Indian languages , broadcast over several stations of All India Radio and Doordarshan . Some of his poems and translations have appeared in Wasafiri, Indian Literature, The Little Magazine , Purvagraha, Samasa among others. He retired as Associate Professor of English, from B.J.B Autonomous College, Bhubaneswar, Odisha.
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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