ঘুম আসে না মাঝ রাতের পর
শেয়াল ডাকে, দূরে, কুয়াশার গভীরে
ব্যাথা জমে বুকে, বদ্ধ লাগে ঘর
যত্ন নিতে পৃথিবীর নেমে আসুক ঝড়।
সাথে আনুক বৃষ্টি দু' ফোঁটা
মিশে যাক চোখের কোনে আজ
ধুয়ে দিক সব অশান্তি তোমার
ফিরিয়ে দিক, তোমায় শৈশবের সাজ।
যদি হয়ে যায় পথে ভুল ত্রুটি কিছু
মিলিয়ে যাক সেসব ঈশ্বরের পায়ে
আমার বলতে থেকে যাক শুধু সত্য
যার ঈশ্বরই আজ একমাত্র আশ্রয়।
রক্ত বলে, "সাজিয়ে নিয়ো আমায়,
ফুলের তোরার নকশিকাঁথা ধরে।"
আঙুল বলে, "ধরবো আবার কোথায়?
হাত কেটেছে শীতের ট্রেনের ভিড়ে।"
শহর খোঁজে অজুহাত কিছু নতুন
বছর শেষে হয়নি ব্যাবসা তেমন,
মিথ্যে তাই তুমিও জ্বালছ আগুন
মনের মধ্যে পাথরের তাপ যেমন।
আমার কাছে থাকছে না কোনো কথা
স্বাধীন হয়েও থাকছে বন্ধ ঘরে
তোমার না হয় রাত্রি কাটবে তারায়
আমরা বাঁচি শ্রীজাত-র হাত ধরে -
"পেরেক থেকে গড়িয়ে নামে ক্ষমা
রক্ত বুঝি ঝরিয়ে দেওয়াই কাজ
এক পৃথিবী আগুন রেখে জমা
সব ধর্মই কেক কাটলো আজ।"
O Life, you are a strange beast.
Colourful in faded winters,
You seem so distant, but human still.
Like the hummingbird on my mango tree
You arrive, and sing in moments free.
I sit on the roof, Sun and shade
Glancing through leaves, silent and tamed.
Through goodbye hymns of a vanishing haze
I realize on this tired, desolate day :
There's always a bird in the sky
If we stare long enough for signs of life.
তারারা খসে পড়ে না
ক্ষয়ে যায়, মহাশূন্যের ঔদাসীন্যে
বোঝাতে চায় অস্তিত্ব; জ্বলে,পুড়ে
জ্বালিয়ে, পুড়িয়ে; জীবন দিয়ে, নিয়ে
নিজের অবশেষ খুঁজে বেড়ায়।
অথচ ভাবো, যদি কোনো তারা না থাকতো ?
এই মহাশূন্যের অস্তিত্ব যেত কোথায় ?
নিভে যাওয়া তারার বুকে যদি হাঁটা যেত
থার্মোমিটার নিয়ে যেতাম আমার সাথে,
থেমে যাওয়া স্পন্দনে দিতাম নতুন প্রাণ
সময়ের অপেক্ষা, মৃত্যু বলে কিছু হয় না।
We recently completed our journey from Cambridge to The Wash, an estuary and bay on the North-Eastern borders of England. The entire route has been broken into three sections, and for each, a short summary (in italics) of the trip has been provided by Rajesh Singh, my fellow companion.
05Nov - we walked to Ely. It was a nice walk. Passing across fields with cows and horses and the beautiful countryside.
We leave you not with an image of the destination, but rather a snippet-movie of the journey.
He grew up as the sunset became an illusion
By the same coast that had nurtured it forever;
The water still crimson yellow, sand as white
As the people enjoying the evergreen tides,
Everything was the same, as a frozen frame
Except that the Sun wasn't magic anymore -
Riding the curves of a fateful Sunset
The sour truth had dawned on the day.
He sat by the shore, lost in its silver ripples
Of what lay ahead in a dark, descending night
With punctured vision he gazed up at the stars
Cold sand reminded him of the one pending ride.
Opposite winds, as usual, and wheels in motion
Armed with the piercing beacon of conviction
He rode towards the Sun, into the perfect Night
Like a melody that was meant to erode
Away the mud from your heart
About me, I wish the next day brings
To you the love that I couldn't bring.
In a narrow channel of aches, I sing
Of the blood we failed to donate,
Like the wealth that flows streamlined
Around the edges of structures divine
I see the waste we have made
Of something pure, but fragile.
I see, for that's my blessing and curse,
In a hope that these words would nurse
The wounds their ancestors caused,
If possible, the bad, and the worse.
In a quest of oiling the cracks and the pores
The heat was turned up a notch;
Bonds moaned into existence, and disappeared
Only to reignite when flipped over;
The fingers pushed deeper into the skin
To reveal that the pita was optimum, (and)
The hummus could step out of the refrigerator.
But the fridge isn't a silent spectator
It laughs at the choices we're offered
Thus some Greek yogurt arrived on my plate
Mesmerized I noticed, the door opens to the left.
With these wings around our hearts
We were destined to fly;
Yet, at day-break we made a promise
To wait for the melancholic kiss
Of the evening. Towards the nests
We fly together, but separated at best
You, a little ahead along the North
Me, succumbing to the West.
photo : the fellow traveler
Where love isn't milked, but reared
And blood, not shed but shared
Where the dark is met with calm, not fear
And light isn't chained to far-away spheres
Where trust resides in what one hears
And why one writes becomes crystal clear
When sleep returns to children everywhere
And mothers regain what they lost in the war
Where poets can live in a peasant's gear
And music accepts to reside between the ears
Into that serene epoch
May my country arise.
When was India born?
Has it ever occurred to you?
The India, you know, that one ...
That still probably exists
Somewhere, among the salt, and
The snow; Within the music and the food
Along the dialects, and the rude
Weathers of innocence lost in greed
And destinies shaped by melancholic moods.
I wander my friend , in a barren field
Of questions, with no end in sight, of the fruit
Or even the tree; forget the seed -
The very seed that sprouted into what
My country is supposed to be.
And if I'm not there
When the dilemma of the brush
Happens to cease,
May you find answers, in the image to be.
What is the idea of India?
My friend, have you wondered
Ever, where your India lies?
Does it lie where you give in to lies?
Or does it rest along the fault lines,
Of a few fractured, visionary minds?
Where does it look for water
When thirst overpowers it for decades?
Have you ever wondered whether
The desert in the West has spread
To the heart, polarized in a quest
To paint an Oasis, above a mirage?
Away from the mysteries of words
Away from novelists, and poets,
Where summer and rain bless the shades,
Into that silent light of freedom,
May my country awake.
Have you ever wondered,
What an orange really is?
May be you have, and
I'm not the only one -
Who doesn't shiver while
Thinking of a violent death that
The seeds embrace to welcome
A cycle of never-ending deaths.
In between, lie the epochs
Of life, and everything else
And evoke a strange question :
Was death the chicken, or the egg?
If calm was what you searched for in summer
Blind, you were to the showers of Earth
The dust was heavy, but the feet weak
Trampled within, the chorus was.
আভিজাত্য, কঠিন তোমার পরিনাম
রক্তাক্ত ইতিহাসের শেষ পৃষ্ঠায় কালো কলম
কোথাও নেমেছে ভোর, কোথাও কামান
বুকের অক্ষর মাপে সব দাগ সমান।
Ae Zaalim,
Qaafir to kaafi huye honge tere naam pe
Shayad kuch sannate humne suni nahi;
Zakhm to bhare pare hai beech bazar mein
Unki dhadkane roke, aisi koi kadam nahi.
I wander through life like a letter in a poem
Unaware, unsure, unconscious of its place
In a grand scheme; either profound or meaningless.
I close my eyes to see, jumbled letters in the dark
Symbols they taught, languages they spoke
And an abstract network of aimless thoughts.
What, could you tell me, does it mean to be free
In no land, with no air, in an endless sea?
So we ask questions of existence itself
No, not of us, but of God it seems.
And since there resides in deep dark pits
Tangled mess of history and space
Or may be not; but in delicate grace,
Do you God, or will I too go insane?
Whose quest is this, and which truth am I after?
Where does this machine cease to wander?
A life form of consciousness, of damnation
I ask, if you are God, then what is information?
I ask again, about the realms of disorder.
Are you really One, or a twin, beyond physical?
And why do I feel like a farmer
With a field fertile in capacity, but not a harvester?
কবিতা পড়ে কত অসংখ্য মানুষ
কিন্তু তোমার আমার মত কজন পড়ে বলো?
আমরা ভাঙা রাস্তায় ঘোড়া খুঁজি
আর চৈত্র সেলে ফাল্গুনের কাঁচা আলো।
এগরোলে আর ঝাল লাগেনা তোমার
আমিও ছেড়েছি পেয়াঁজ অনেকদিন হলো,
বয়স তোমার কমেছে কিছুটা ঠিকই
কোমড় যদিও বেড়ে ছলেছে ভালোই।
তোমার কাজল মিশতে চায়না কাদায়
রংমশাল তাই ভিজছে ফিকে সাদায়,
আমার কাঁধে ঝুলছে অতীত খাতা
অঙ্ক ভুল আজও তোমায় মানায়।
হাতঘড়িতে দম দিচ্ছে কবীর মিয়াঁ
শহর বলছে সাজবে ভিক্টোরিয়া
তোমার কিছুই যায়না এসে তাতে
তাই বৃষ্টির ভয়ে কাঁপছে পরকীয়া ।।
আকাশ খুলে জলের কিছু আনাগোনা
মেঘের ফাঁকি আজও দাম দিয়ে কেনা
তোমার স্মৃতি খোঁজে আমায় সাথে
নিয়ে চিঠির পালক জমা খাতা,
আমি তো আর ফিরে ফিরে আসবো না;
বিকেল গুলো ভুলতে ভুলতে
আর সন্ধ্যে নামতে
তুমি কুড়িয়ে নিচ্ছ রাত;
পথের দাবি ঠেলতে ঠেলতে
যদি ভোর খুঁজতে
ভাবো বাড়িয়ে দিতে হাত ।
It has been a long time, since I was bitten by the bug of studying Physics. Please note that I have chosen my words very carefully. It was not the subject itself that caught my attention, if I remember correctly, but the idea of studying it, that had a certain shine to it. I do not exactly remember how this came into being, but it probably has something to do with the constellation sessions that I had with my father.
Back in the single-digit years of my life, I had a natural affinity for education. If I recollect correctly, this was the only thing that I was good at. I liked playing cricket, but was awful with the bat, and the ball. I did possess a good eye for the game, in the sense that I could sense people's vulnerabilities. But it doesn't really surprise me today. I think I'm fairly okay with observations. What I'm really bad at, is the application part.
Success and failures have both played contrasting roles in my life. Ignoring the microscopics, if I'm allowed to coarse-grain, I would say that success has made me more humble, while the drive in my life has been my share of failures.
I hate to fail. Today. Much more than I ever did.
There is a certain beauty to success. But we need to dig deeper in order to really understand it. My position, my title, my association do not measure my success anymore. They have all played their parts, inflated and punctured my ego, and then restored it to where it should be, today. The real success lies in knowing that I am good enough..
...Enough to know what is expected of me, and enough to know that there is no end, no finite boundary for the effort that should be put in. But primarily, the most important lesson that I've learnt over the last twelve years, is something that I already knew before this journey began in 2007.
It is simple. I have a hunger. I have always had a particular hunger. It is a monster that lives in me, remains in hibernation, but never truly sleeps. It wakes up when it feels threatened, does what it deems necessary, and goes back to its lair. But each time, it has been a little more awake, as if it knows that its time is meant to come, when this long rest will be over, and its vassal ready to roll into the battlefield.
The only complication is that its vassal is an active system, with a mind of his own. So what lies ahead is an interesting epoch. Either we will have a symbiotic relationship, and a story for eons, or a self destruction waiting to happen, a story stale in its approach, and serving.
If you are wondering about the sudden tonal shift, this is what we go through. We are two, but one; a magnet doesn't represent us. So put your bipolar theories to rest. We are awake, and aware. We live, one in philosophy, the other in nature. We duel, every now and then, and even draw a lot of blood at times. We both know whose victory we both desire. But that win should be well deserved, and achieved through a single means, love.
We have always been together.
-So you'd say.
- And you won't?
- I was wondering if I created you.
- No, your experiences did. And then I created us.
- What if I delete this post altogether?
- You can, but you won't. You like yourself too much.
- Nobody needs to know who you are.
- Yes, but you do. You did create me. And yes, you can destroy me as well. You are fully capable of being who you are. I'm only your vassal. You will need me until you need me.
You blame that I wake up to control your life! You wake me up. Look at yourself. Look where you are taking yourself. Read your own lines and see the veneer that you wanted to create, but can't anymore. What? Does this hurt your ego when I say you cannot do something?
- Yes, it does.
- How far will you go until you realize the futility of it all?
- And now I see how you've interchanged us. Me playing your role, and you yours!
- Sssh! There's a monster inside us.
- Yes. Tame it.
- You know what, this will go online, for everyone to see. You better wake up now.
I hope you go on a journey,
With a beautiful mind, and
Ever changing seasons;
Where hide and seek will belong
To the Sun and the clouds
And the wheels will kiss the ground
Like lips, unsure, but home bound;
Where every forward moment,
Is part of a rotation, no matter the round.
The breeze will find you, and
Lose itself in your hair, like it usually does
In nonchalance, at every chance.
I hope you find your way around the world
And realize the things, we all did,
But not from the confines of your closet,
Rather the closets belonging to nature.
And if you lose your way, remember,
Wherever you set foot, will be yours, forever.
You will take it upon yourself to forget
Who you are, and have been, or will be
The wheels will roll, and the feet - rule
Over the physical, and beyond ...
For the Earth may be round, but
There are things, beyond me and you,
Undaunted, and beyond bounds.
To the purple, pink Dream.
There stood Time, smiling her mischief away
A little to my side, a little in eye's way;
And then stepped up, a Moment towards me
To reveal her identity, to conceal her Dream;
I touched her presence, felt her glance
That she was eternity, and I was done.
And then I was, sitting by a tree
Holding onto what was not meant to be,
Time walked in, with arrogant clouds
And there we were, on a late May ground,
Time in blue, and pink on her heart
My lady, what if we managed a start?
শরতের আকাশ কবে দেখবো জানি না
তবে শরতের রাস্তা দেখতে পাই ইদানিং
শুকনো মাটিতে ছটফট করা অসংখ্য কই
চোখে চোখ রাখা ছাড়া আর উপায় নেই।
মনে পড়ে, ছোটবেলায় বৃষ্টি হয়েছিল আশ্বিনে
বাজারে গুঁটিসুটি দেওয়া রকেটে ছিল শীতের আভাস
তার মানে কি কোনো আগুন জ্বলে নি সেবার ?
জ্বলেছিল, নদীপারের পেট গুলোর ভেতর।
কেউ রাস্তায় নামেনি সেদিন, কেউ শহর ঘেরেনি
আমার নতুন জামা হয়েছিল, জুতোও;
পরের পুজোয় ঝলমলিয়ে সূর্য উঠেছিল
সাথে উঠেছিল কিছু উচ্চাকাঙ্খী রকেট,
কিছু দূর গিয়েই যারা বাস্তব চিনতে পেরেছিল।
নীচ থেকে দেখেছিলাম আগুনের ফোয়ারা
তার শব্দ পেতে যথারীতি ক্ষণিকের দেরি হয়েছিল।
আজকাল যখন শব্দ আগে শুনতে পাই,
আবার ছোটবেলায় ফিরে যাই অবিলম্বে।
আমি picture-tube ভুলিনি এখনও
আলোকে পেছনে ফেলে শব্দ বাইরে আসতো;
প্রযুক্তি এই কুড়ি বছরে এগিয়ে গেল কতদূর,
বোকা বাক্সের আলো নিভে গেছে বহুদিন ।।
A market-square with its drizzly blanket,
A toast to a melancholic Tagore tune
A desire for an instrument at fingertips
And a heart crying out loud and mute;
Music casts its shadow on hidden treasures,
Begs for an answer in a cold tryst with silence.
When dawn meets and parts from morning
You know, that brief moment of madness
In your eyes, that succumbed to sanity :
That, my friend, is my melancholy.
আমি তোমায় ভালোবাসি মাধবীলতা,
অনিমেষের মতো ঠিক না, সে বইয়ের নায়ক।
যারা বাংলা ভাষা নিয়ে অহংকার করে,
সেভাবেও তোমায় নিয়ে আমি কিছু ভাবি না।
যারা মার্ক্স, লেনিনের বাইরে বোবা হয়ে যায়
আর ট্যাক্সি চড়ে ট্যাক্সের নিন্দা করে,
তাদের দারিদ্র্যে আমায় খুঁজে পাবে না।
যেখানে অজ্ঞানতা মূর্খের চারিত্রিক বৈশিষ্ট
সেই জ্ঞানের দীপ আমায় আলোকিত করে না;
আমি তোমায় ভালোবাসি, মাধবীলতা ।
যেখানে খেলায় জিতে মনে মনে দম্ভ আসে না,
সেই সুবিচারের কাঠগড়ায় আমায় বারবার দাঁড় করিয়ো
আমি তোমার কাছে প্রতিবার হেরে যাবো, নিঃশব্দে।
আমি তোমায় ভালোবাসি, মাধবীলতা
এই কালপুরুষের কালবেলার উত্তোরাধিকার তোমার ।।
আমি জানি, বাড়িতে তোমার মন বসে না ইদানিং।
ব্যস্ত হতে চাইছো, ভাবছো সবই যেন চলমান, তুমি ছাড়া।
বন্ধুরা দেশান্তর করছে, ঋতুরা বদলে চলেছে,
আর তুমি, সেই আট দেওয়াল, তিন জানালায় বন্দী।
ভালো খাবারেও যেন অরুচি জন্মাচ্ছে তোমার,
সময়ে ঘুম, প্রয়োজনে কথা বলার সাথী, সব আছে
কিন্তু তুমি তো নিজেকে প্রমান করতে চাও; সে নেই।
আমি বলছি না তুমি ভুল ভাবছো, একাকিত্ব আমি চিনি
আর চেনে আমারই মতো সেই সব ছেলে-মেয়েরা
যারা আর সময়ে রান্না করতে চায় না ।
এই দেবীপক্ষ আমাদের সবার। ধরে নেওয়া যাক, আমরা কেউ একা নই।
Imagine. Ripples in time,
And us, surfers; sound and light,
Gliding into what we foresee
Only to be driven back, without mercy.
Imagine. Roads within abyss
And hunger relaxing into promise.
Imagine. The symphony backwards.
Imagine. The origin. The afterwards.
If the worlds seem to collide,
Remember the waves, and the laws behind.
And if for continuity, doubts arrive,
Imagine. And bygones will come back to life.
Imagine. Then. Now. Time.
Ely Cathedral
The branch
Towards The Wash
Ferry-point