অস্ত

অসংখ্য মানুষের ভিড়,
প্রকৃতি স্তব্ধ,আর্দ্রতা  চিহ্নহীন;
যেন রোদের আলতা মেখেছে আকাশ
দিগন্ত বিস্তৃত রাজপথ,
অন্তিম যাত্রায় যুদ্ধরথ;
বিদায় আলিঙ্গনে রুদ্ধ প্রকৃতির ইতিহাস।

দৃশ্য, তুমি বিদায়বেলায়
আর করো না দেরি,
নিভে যাক রঙ,
ঘুমাক সোনার তরী।

পৃথিবী পুড়েছে শত কোটি বার,
মানুষ পোড়েনি এখনো;
কোনো এক কবি লিখেছে সময়ে
যেতে পারি, কিন্তু কেন?

ফুল-শয্যা

মৌমাছি, তুমি কোন ফুলে যাবে আজ?

ফুলের তো ভোরে ঘুম ভেঙে যায়,

তোমার ইদানিং দুপুরে ওঠাই কাজ।

সব ফুল তো শুকিয়ে গেল,

মৌ, তুমি কোন ফুলে যাবে আজ?

বরফ পড়ছে পাশের গ্রামে, ফুল ফোটেনি সেথা

ঘুম পড়েছে প্যাঁচার ঘরে, চাঁদ পাচ্ছে ব্যথা।

ঘর ভাঙছে তোমার দলের, মধু কমেছে যেথা

মধুর নেশা নেই যে তোমার, জানবে কে সে কথা?

ফুলগুলো যে শুকিয়ে গেল বেঘোরে শিশির ঝরে

মাটির কাছেই ঢলতে হল, তুমি এলে না ভোরে;

রঙের তাদের ছিল না অভাব, ছিল না তাদের লাজ

মৌমাছি, হায়! ফুরলো তারা, কোথায় যাবে আজ?

তোমার গান

তোমার জন্য এই গান রেখে দিলাম,
সুরে বাঁধলাম না, শেকলের বড় দাম

যেন শীত-স্নানের জন্য আসা উষ্ণ গরম জল
যেন শেষ বসন্তের দুপুরে হঠাৎ পেখমবাজের দল;

যেমন বর্ষণমুখর বিকেলে সোহাগ সোহাগ ডাক
ভাঙা কারখানা ধর্মঘটে কচিকাঁচার এক ঝাঁক,

ধরো, আজকের কলকাতায় পটলডাঙ্গার সিঁড়ি
লাল-চে চা যখন ছিল রোয়াকের ফাঁকে বিড়ি

বা চন্দ্রবিন্দু ছাঁকা বুকে মোমের আলোর আঁচ
তোমার এই গানে নয় থাক কড়া পাকের ছাঁচ;

আর থাক সাথে এক শহর ভালোবাসা,
এক মুঠো প্রেম,
এক বাদামি বিকেল
              আর বাকি যা কিছু ছিল ফেলে আসা।

আজকের দিন

আজ আর কাউকে নিয়ে লিখবো না।
আজকের দিনটা নয় আমারই হোক শুধু;
আজকের সব পাওয়া আমার হোক, সব না পাওয়াও
আজ সব হেরে যাওয়া আমার হোক, বিজয়াও
আজ গানের সব মাধুর্য আমার জন্যেই ভাসুক,
মুছে যাওয়া কবিদের না পড়া সব কবিতাও ;
আজকের দিনে পৃথিবী অন্য গ্রহ খুঁজে পাক
সব সূর্য আজ পাক নিষ্পাপ চাঁদের আরাম।

Bicchhinotar pratik

লিখতে ইচ্ছে করছে, তোকে নিয়ে
তোকে ভালোবাসা নিয়ে। যত দেখি, তত ইচ্ছে হয়।
যেমন তোর মধ্যে কোনো নিয়ম নেই,
যেমন সব ছন্দ তুই অবহেলায় ভেঙে দিস,
সেরমই এই লেখা, তোর বিচ্ছিন্নতার প্রতীক।

আমার আর তোর কোনো শহর নেই, কোনো সময় নেই
অথচ আমার সব শহর তুই, সময় তো বটেই!
তোর হাত ছুঁতে আঙুল এগিয়ে যায় না, এগোয় না কবিতা
থতমত কোন ছোট গল্প যেন রোজ রাতে কড়া নাড়ে দরজায়।

নতুন

যা ছিল নতুনের দলে, আজ নয় ফুরোলো।
কাল হয়তো নতুন আবার মুখ ফেরাবে,
বা ফেরাবে না, চলে যাবে;
নতুনের নতুনত্ব বজায় রাখার কোনো ঠ্যাকা নেই।
নতুন কে ঘষে মেজে একঘেঁয়ে করে ফেলেছ
সে বরং ছুটি কাটিয়ে আসুক, বেপরোয়া কোনো দেশে।
তাই বুকের ছিদ্রে বেঁধে নিয়ো কোনো সস্তা মোমের ফিতে
তোমারও তো মধ্যবিত্ত ভীরু প্রেম, গোপন কালশিটে!

Chhaya

সব ছায়া মুছে যায় দিন ফুরোলে
মুছে যেতে হয়; তর্ক চলে না
রাতের ছায়া হতে গেলে সাহস চাই
কোনদিন ছিল না, আজও নেই।
তবু তুমি যদি চাও ছায়া হতে,
যদি চাও নিয়ম বদলে দিতে,
মনে রেখো, রাতের সব তারার মাঝে,
মাঝে মাঝে, জ্যোতস্না তোমার জন্যই ওঠে।

Elixirs and Fairytales

There was once a rumour;

About the sweetest honey known to man

That a tree beyond the sea

Belonged to an unknown queen bee,

That the nectar she protected

Was for some reason an elixir.

So Men, as they would, tried

And failed to overcome the tides.

And to quench their thirst

They turned, in hope, to lime.

But in every story, there resides

A hero, neglected by the tribe.

The one who manages to swim and climb
And reach where no one could arrive.

The tree was tall, the bees angry

But the story only led to his destiny.

And now here he was, face to face

With the queen and the fairytale,

And this is where the story should end.

What he was, was his past,

Where he would be, he didn't bother

All those pages burned at History's altar

And he couldn't care less for the nectar.

He was, where no one ever was,

His eyes, blessed with a simple answer.

Love, like beauty, belongs to the beholder.

পলক নাহি নয়নে, 
হেরি না  কিছু ভুবনে

নিরখি শুধু অন্তরে, সুন্দর বিরাজে ।।

Crackers

No matter how much you love them
Crackers were always meant to burn;
For if they don't, homes will, money will
And if they do, you would be able to sit still.
So you have to light them up, you see
To take care of the darkness that you feed.
Any cracker that ever protested, wasn't dry
But alas! Crackers have no right to cry.

So let's rejoice as the fire eats them whole
Doesn't matter, near or far, or somewhere unknown;
There's always hope in someone else's despair
As long as we, the great dwellers of the moral world,
Know how not to burn ourselves, while lighting the fire.

Number Line

I wonder what resides between numbers!

Two numbers, separated, yet inseparable;

A strange space between two unknowns,

You get an infinity as you predict a zero!

Zero, what is zero by the way?

A hard bound, an image it tries to sell;

But there's really no end to its end!

So all your zeros, actually are pretty lame.

And infinity? 

Which game do you think it plays?

A mighty rich guy, no official address

It pulls the strings when analytics fail.

Haven't you ever seen the number line?

Does it not bother your logical mind,

That logic entered so suspiciously in your life?

See you later, time for some polarizing tides.

Love letters

What do you think my poems are?
Documents of affairs undone,
Each poem is but, only a letter
My only love letter, to you.
If I could reverse engineer,
I would give up the offer
For I wouldn't live another life
If I am not in love with you.
My life, is but a failed love letter
Torn through the middle, surviving on edges,
Colourful once, now only in patches,
Going truly extinct, drifting into ashes.

Beautiful dreams

Every beautiful dream has to evaporate

A new day with question marks on its back

Takes over; Usual questions, usual nothingness,

She looks into herself, as she slowly fades away.

Each beautiful dream, another reflection,

A sequence of hopes, still succumbed to her;

She waits beneath the blanket, 

If only the cold would hold them back,

If only dreams were meant to stay!

Beautiful dreams, she learned, are made of clay.

She walks on herself, as a shadow does in the day

The world wouldn't know, for she would never say

The curtains will fall and clocks will call for rain,

A poem someday, I hope will find its way
And keep you alive, if you're awake.

The Gambler

"What if this is your last hand?" asked the rookie to the gambler. The gambler smiled and relaxed into his chair.

"My dear friend," he said, " a gambler knows that every shot is the last one, or not."

The rookie was far from being convinced, "Do you mean to say that there is no calculation behind your moves? You certainly do not leave everything to chance, do you?"

"Of course not! I play my cards. Everything else..." He let it hang.

The rookie was intrigued, "But doesn't this game then require too much patience from you?"

"No. I back myself to improvise. I live the game."

"What happens when you realize that a move might have been a mistake?"

"Well," the gambler smiled again, "You see, one has got to be honest. I never make a move thinking that it's not going to work. If it doesn't, I told you what I do."

"There always runs a risk of losing it all, even if you win it all. For if you win, everyone will want you to play another hand. But if you lose it all, you have nothing to bargain with. Don't you find this unfair?", the rookie had impressed himself with the question.

"On the contrary! When you're honest to yourself, you know the real reason behind your action. I gamble not for the rush of gambling. I do it because it is the only thing I can do."

"Are you prepared to lose everything?"

"No, I am not! I'm not because it is simply not a possibility."

"But of course you can!"

"I can only lose what I make you believe I can lose."

"I don't follow, sorry. You cannot get around the question by being philosophical."

"Can't I?", the gambler looked at the rookie with a strange shrewdness in his eyes.

The rookie decided not to back down, "You can't."

"Wanna bet?"

কিমাশ্চর্জপুরম !

আজ আর কিছু লিখবো না।

হাতের তালুতে কে যেন ফিস ফিস করছে;

রাত দুপুরে বঞ্চি চটিরামের মুণ্ডচ্ছেদন,

কোন ধর কোথায় পড়ল, কোন মুন্ডু কার ভাগে

বদরক্ত ধুয়ে গেল, যত লাশ সব গঙ্গাজলে।

ডাক্তারের ভোঁতা সূঁচ চামড়ায় গেল আটকে,

ওষুধ পত্র মন্ত্রবলে এখনো গাঁজার কলকে ।

জয় পরশুরাম।

p.s. দয়া করে 'যদু ডাক্তারের পেশেন্ট' পড়ো, বা অলস হলে Sunday Suspense শুনে নাও। Masterful writing! Absolute genius at work. Bengali Literature is a coal mine!

অঙ্কন

রঙে মিশছে রঙ, যেমন কথায় মেলে নীরবতা,
এ রঙ কোন রঙ, তুমি কি বলতে পারো?
যদি ছবি আঁকতে বলি তোমায়, আমার কথা নিয়ে
আমার প্রেমের রঙ তুমি ফুটিয়ে তুলতে পারো?
পছন্দের রঙে তা ঘোলাটে করে ফেলবে না তো?
বেশি গাঢ় হয়তো করবে না, কিন্তু যদি বেশি হালকা করে ফেলো?
কি রঙে আমি রেঙে আছি, যদি তোমায় আঁকতেই হয়,
কোনো প্রশ্ন না করে, আমার রঙে নিজেকে রাঙাতে পারো?

সহজ নয়। কখনোই সহজ ছিল না এসব।
কবি যখন রঙের জন্ম দেয়, মনে রেখ,
অনেক রঙে তাকে নিঃস্ব হতে হয়,
নিঃস্ব না হলে, ক্যানভাস সাদা হয় না।
সাদায় যেকোনো রঙ ফুটিয়ে তোলা যায়,
কত অসহ্য যন্ত্রনা মুখ গোঁজে সহ্যের সীমায়।
ফুটে ওঠে দূর দিগন্তে পান্নার সোনালী আভা
হায় সবুজ! তোমার রূপের ছটা যেন ওরাও কিছু পায় ।। 

Bookshelf

The story of a bookshelf;

Layers of dust over few memorable pages,

Usually forgotten, but not forsaken.

It carries within, a thousand ghosts,

Beyond borders and farther away

And the ones nearest are farther instead.

Once in a while, a hand glosses over it

Flipping the pages, just a little bit

The touch stays on as a bookmark

Unfinished stories of unlimited access.

বৃষ্টি হল না

তুমি সবার সেরা, তোমার হয়না তুলনা 
তোমায় ডেকে ডেকেও যারা তোমায় পেল না,
তাই ঝড় উঠলো, মেঘ ডাকলো, বৃষ্টি হল না।

হঠাৎ ছাদের ধারে, তোমার নামটা অজানা
সন্ধ্যে যেতাম ছন্দ ভুলে, নিজের ঠিকানা
তাই দিন বাড়লো, রাত কমলো, সময় এলো না।

নামতে গেলাম পাড়ার মাঠে, খেলতে জানিনা
হাজার হোঁচট খেয়েও তোমায় দেখতে ভুলি না
তাই বল ঢুকলো, গোলটা কেউ দেখতে পেল না।

তুমিই আমার প্রথম চিঠি, প্রথম কবিতা
এক পশলা হেসে, শেষে তুমি এলে না
তাই ঝড় উঠলো, মেঘ ডাকলো, বৃষ্টি হল না।

প্রথম তিনটে লাইন পাতি চুরি করা  Mirchi Somak-এর থেকে। 

বেশি নয়।

সব চলে যাবে,
হয়তো বর্ষার এক ঝাপটায়,
হয়তো সময়ের কঠিন আগুনে।

যত ভিড় করা যন্ত্রনা,
যত অপমান, লাঞ্ছনা
যত সন্ধি, যত সান্তনা
সব ধুয়ে যাবে
কোনো বর্ষার এক হঠাৎ সন্ধ্যেবেলা
অথবা পুড়ে যাবে
ধীরে, শুকনো কাঠের মতো,
অহেতুক কিছু লাল হল্কা ফেরত দিয়ে।

অথচ, সবই সেই চলে যাবে।
একটু যদি থেকে গেল, ক্ষতি কি?

Wrong analysis

What should I really write about?
There's no humanity left anywhere
A world of selfish motives and lies,
Acts of play-makers and sacrifice
Riddles proudly exist in every line
And here you are all, living beings
Living through it all, parasites on Love,
The more one gives, the greater your hunger.
What should I write about tonight?
Sitting in my forsaken, muddled space
I think this world doesn't deserve the Sun.
Live with your lies, live through your prime
Forgetting the rest, but your own interest
This world need not be further maligned.
Who am I, who writes every night?
Who will listen to a destitute cry?
Ears do not exist, they have been forbidden forever
For truth is too harsh and even toxic
So you will gladly live with yourself, illiterate
By choice, for to choose you never failed.
I'd rather then succumb to the writer on my desk
Where am I? There's not a part in me that answers that.

Inn

If there's a way behind the woods,
Beyond the veils and curtains,
Far away into a smooth nothingness
How would, I wonder, that be?

Will it be without oxygen to breathe in?
A texture creamy, a depth dreamy,
A song, filled with drops of dopamine
And a central source, to take it all in.

If there ever existed such a place,
I still wonder where that would be!
Deep inside a poet's realism
Surreal resides in a highway inn.

My Poems

Poems come and go, like raindrops do
Every now and then, a long-shot view
A garden, narrowly mistaken for woods
My poems come and go, without you.

They come from nowhere and return nowhere, too
In this wide grassland of nowheres, swims a flute
The old listens to the gramophone, awaiting the new
The new blends into the breeze, with a Sunset hue.

Far from the madding crowd

Have you met a raindrop?
The distant cold stories it brings
From the far away gliding clouds,
Far from the glittering towns,
Defying gravity with elegance,
Far from the madding crowd;
Have you not met a raindrop?
Did it never succumb on your face,
And lose itself somewhere in your eyes,
Only to stay hidden there, forever
Until, you were dying for some air?
And it carried your pain, along the lines
Of your face, far away, into the ground,
Far far away, from this madding crowd.
Have you never really met a raindrop?

Nowheres

Where the wind slows down near the horizon,
Where the set Sun rises once again from,
Close to that somewhere, among nowheres
A bit of chocolate might still be left, unknown.

What if the chocolate spoke to you,
Listened to all the cracks on your heart
And decided to blend in your blood?

There is of course, that nowhere, somewhere
With its field of chocolates and streams of cologne;
Indulging in its brass sky, planting seeds of droplets,
Droplets of innocence, faithful in its absence.

A horizon, near-by

Like a thousand poems fusing into one
I see an evening with its paint brush Sun
What feels Oh so near, is only the horizon
The music blends into hapless citylights, and, I'm done.

There will be new stories everywhere, every now and then
But I will be far away, sketching my own silhouette, often
There wouldn't be capsules of speed, or past, or present
Only land, velvet grass, phantom breeze and sugarcane.

A stream near-by, and a cliff for the untamed
A rose pink sky, and an epic doomsday novel
Where humanity fights off the adversary, once again
Where storytellers would survive both Sunrise and Sunset.

If you ever find this place,
You might simply run away
From all this that you hold dear,
For you will find me, that's certain.

Dawn

Dawn breaks, what does it really break?
A fracture-apocalypse on a starry landscape
Like a marooned soul discovering a raft
What I used to be, is leaving me this night.

And I'm as free as my imagination lets me be
As the moss slides down my new born wings,
I finally know what being a rolling stone means.

Life's a drum-roll today,
The one beyond the sixth
The pieces are falling off,
Those which didn't fit
I can only smile,
For there wouldn't be another back-flip
I'm borrowing a moment out,
Let this smile settle on me.

A walk to remember - I

This is a boring post (the first of two more to come soon). It is about three guys (Niladri, Chiranjib and yours truly) going to one of the D-day beaches in Normandy and coming back alive. It is about them trekking 17 km in 3.5 hours (which is, of course, doable, since they did it). It is about thanking Albert Einstein for his General Theory of Relativity, without which these guys wouldn't have GPS tracker in their phones. It is about telling everyone that Normandy is a far better place to be in during the Christmas holidays than Paris. It is also about coming face to face with the best experience in life  and realizing the significance of learning about yourself.

I will cut straight to the chase. We spent a relaxed evening in Bayeux on 28th of December, had a nice dinner, slept, woke up at around 10 on the next day and had a croissant and a pain chocolat for breakfast from a patisserie (Yes, this is something you should do once in your life. Come to France and have these things for breakfast, served hot) . We then took a bus to the Omaha beach, had a satisfying lunch, strolled along the beach for a few minutes and then visited the American cemetery (for the WW2 martyrs, ala Saving Private Ryan opening scene). We had to take a return bus to Bayeux at 16:50 hours. We had time on our hands and hence decided to be at the beach for some more time. It is then that the first surprise welcomed us. Me and Niladri were busy taking pictures of the landscape when we suddenly noticed something a little farther on the beach. At first we couldn't believe our eyes. Could it be really.. surely not..oh wait it's moving..Damn it's a seal!) Before we could reach our hero, it had managed to slip back into the water, pushing itself through its belly. Chiranjib, who decided to see all this from the cliff, gave us a call. He wanted to communicate that there was a group of five of them. From the beach, me and Niladri could see only two.
We then decided to leave the beach and headed for the bus stop. (We did manage to see the entire group of seals from the cliff though.) We arrived at 16:35 hours and waited for the bus. Earlier when we took the bus to Omaha beach from Bayeux, I had overheard the driver mentioning to the guy who got on the bus after me, that there would be no return bus on that day. I had mentioned this to my friends but neither them, nor me took this over-heard conversation seriously.
At 17:10, twenty minutes after the stipulated time, we finally accepted the situation. There would be no bus today to take us from the cemetery to Bayeux. We tried to hitch-hike but we never really stood a chance.
It was already getting dark and we had 17 km ahead of us. Our phone batteries were far from being at any satisfactory level because of the constant use of the camera throughout the day. So whatever be the scenery around us, we had to optimize our battery usage (given GPS drains batteries more).
We set out walking. I felt something peculiar during that time. It was as if the setting light and the rising hope were at a phase difference of pi. The darker one became, the brighter shone the other. We walked on the highway for around twenty minutes after which Google maps suggested a deviation. The new road seemed to go parallel to the highway for sometime but the bend was not properly visible. Since there was still some light, there also was some doubt. But we took the road nonetheless. Walking for around another ten minutes, I was convinced at the time that it had been a bad idea. The road was muddy, too muddy to walk comfortably. Without any light, this road would simply lead to a greater disaster. But we kept walking, three of us, keeping each other's spirits high. Our shoes had stopped talking to us by that point. But we had no other option. I asked Niladri twice whether we were on the right road, and he simply said, "Yes."
We were surrounded by grasslands on all sides, extending to the horizon. (There are no photos, sorry. We were saving batteries, remember?) We had two visitors along the way, a man and his dog. He must have wondered what we were up to.

Chiranjib in his usual demeanor, said that he loved the new road and that he didn't want to take the highway anymore. I, on the other hand, was simply being myself - Freaking out on a literally unknown and difficult path. We were simply not able to walk on the road. We were literally walking on the grass on the sides. There were branches sticking out every few steps. You had to carefully maneuver your head and feet all the time. On top of that, the grass we walked on was on a slope and we surely could not afford to slip (not that we would have fallen a great distance downwards, but there were chances of injuries).
I did know for sure that this road was unusable in pitch darkness and I wanted to get the hell out of this stretch as fast as possible and get on a more solid road. Niladri was mostly focused on the direction, and thus being our true 'Nilu da'. Just as the final rays of the Sun bid adieu to us, so did this non user-friendly stretch of mud. We were now at a crossroad. The muddy terrain extended straight but a highway bisected right through its muddy heart. I was not going to let go of this opportunity to walk with some sanity. Chiranjib, in his style, mentioned we could still walk straight. But Niladri, thankfully, saw the sense in taking the highway. There was a left turn being suggested by Google, if we would walk on the highway for a few minutes. We could only hope that that left turn would be a better option than the one we had just left behind.

বরফ

আমার শহরে বরফ পড়ে না,
বরফের গা গরম, ধূম জ্বর
ডাক্তার বলেছেন বরফ থেকে দূরে রাখতে
বরফের নিউমনিয়ার আশঙ্কা।

Bus

বাস থামে , ছেলেবেলা হারায় এক এক করে
জানলার কাঁচে চোখ লেগে থাকে, বহু দূরে
পেন্সিল ছোট হয় সময়ের বড় হওয়ার ফাঁকে
খাতায় অঙ্ক জমে, ভুল করা নামতার ডাকে
ইতিহাস খেলা করে বাংলার শয়নকক্ষে
কাঁচা হিমসাগরের ভিড় ফিবছর পুরাতন বৃক্ষে
না জানি কোন স্বপ্ন বাঁধতে কত গিট্ গেল খুলে
তুমি কি সেভাবেই, কোনো মুহূর্তের ভুলে, তুমি হলে?

Omaha

A shore is not a shore
Until you feel the waves
A bluff is no bluff at all
Until it sings of conquests.

A life never becomes a life
If it ignores grand designs
A silhouette is but a shadow
Of a glorious past, left behind.

A man is still a boy
And a boy, his mother's child
A mother is but a woman
A woman, her own ally.

A breeze is a storyteller,
A story of man and wild;
The breeze a little wilder
And man remains uncivilized.