Five Odia poems by Bipin Nayak have been translated by Snehaprava Das
WITHIN
An equestrian within me
Mounts an unbridled horse
And plays a violin.
A boatman inside me
Crosses an imaginary river
Again, and again
In a non-existent boat.
Within me, there is a wayfarer
That refuses to
Travel the trodden road
And takes a turn.
A lake ripples in me,
Waiting futilely
To lose itself in the sea,
And a waterfall
Leaps noisily from above
To wet the rocks.
A cloud floats within me,
All of a sudden,
Flashes a lightning smile
And goes back to sleep.
In me, a cowherd
Returns home in the twilight
Painted in the colours of sunset
And lights a kerosene lamp.
A camel inside me
Sags under a sack-load of salt,
But trudges across the sands
Dreaming of a lush meadow.
A mother in me conceives words,
Bleeds in labour,
Nourishes the vulnerable words
With love and care
And watches them grow…
PAPER BIRD
My woes pull your neck longer.
My beloved words become the air
To stuff your insides.
I forge your wings from
The crumpled paper of my dreams,
And mold your beak with my kisses,
Paint you in the colour
Of my solitary nights….
Trim you with
All my fears and frustrations.
Because I could not
Make a paper-boat of you
To sail in the muddy puddle,
I lift you up
To fly across
The monsoon sky.
When you climb a little higher
Into the air
And are drenched out of shape,
I, a naked child,
Stand here in the rain, look up and cry!
THE MAKING
I pick a few bones of my hardest grief,
Scoop some blood
Oozing red to create.
I fix a face of smoke or a patch of weepy cloud
Mold a nose from the wafting breeze.
I fix a pair of eyes, like day and night,
There in the face.
In one of them, I put a tornado,
A bird in the other.
With flowers of joy and grief,
I shape the lips.
The body I try to make
Out of a river that hides under it,
A fire and a perpetually vain desire
To reach the sea or a desolate jungle.
I design the limbs from a
Lingering surge of green.
All these efforts
Are but only to replicate
What has been made before.
I set afloat
Because it has been set to drift
Much before…
And because it has sprinkled
A cosmic fervour across
A secret sanctum inside me,
To bring a god to life,
I worship it!
I keep trying to create and re-create inside me
Because it has made me much before that!
A SKY AS I AM
I have set out to paint a sky of my own --
A sky that is exactly as I am!
And for that I have picked up
Some nomadic dreams, a sunset,
I have collected the blood of flowers,
The tune of a stream that has flown away,
The chirping of orphan birds,
The layers of moss spread over
A decrepit piece of rock-writing.
I have scooped up
A handful of ash from the debris of
Perished time,
And a wild storm that had retreated
After having blown me away.
I took out the wet melody from a violin and
the primeval music of the insect,
throbbing inside the grass.
From the reminisces stuck in the sinews
I have gathered a few scattered sighs,
And from the darkness, the mysteries of nights,
I have got warmth from dreams,
Sin from pollen grains.
With these elements beside me
And a canvas in shreds,
I sit down to paint a sky of mine
A sky that is exactly as I am!
LET THEM SING
Let them sing a song.
I do not mind
If my wound heals them,
Or my tears make them glow,
And my blood paints them crimson.
My quick breathing flits about, but
I do not mind if someone plays a flute
Blowing into the holes of my bones
And sings through the lips
Borrowed from me.
Let them sing, why must I mind it?
The lips are not mine. Nor is the song!
Bipin Nayak (1950), a bold and engaging voice in the literary scenario of modern Odisha, is a trend setter who explored new possibilities for Odia poetry. One of the most significant postmodernist and minimalist poet in Odia, Nayak is a believer in the artefact of words than the meaning and medium. For him poetry is an aesthetic exploration through the fragile, fluid words which could be liberated from its conventional canons and connotations. There is a distinct undertone of metaphysical too in his poetry that hovers over the slim divide between the real and the surreal. Bipin Nayak is a pioneer in Odia auto-fiction writing. His ‘Jatra ra Ketoti Pada’[1], an unprecedented experimental work, that challenges the conventional style through a blending of prose and poetry and does not conform to any traditional literary genre. Besides being the recipient of the prestigious Odisha Sahitya Akademi award the poet has received several accolades for his contribution to Odia literature. Significant amongst them are the Bishuba Jhankar Purashkar, Akhila Mohan Kabita Sammana, Sachivalaya Lekhaka Parishada Sammana and Sammana from Kalinga Sahitya Samaja. He has been widely published in Hindi, Bengali and also in English and has adorned the pages of Indian Literature, Kavya Bharati and other prestigious journals. His major works include Swarachitra (The Painted voice) that fetched him the Odisha Sahitya Akademi award, Nija Nija Barnabodha Apustaka, Sadaja, Bidagdha Bichara, Band Ghara ra Basna.
[1] Translates to ‘how many steps are there in a journey’
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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