Translated from the Bengali by Manjish Roy  

Uniform

The farewell of rain

I place my hand on water
By the edges of the moon
The plaintive songs of the moonlight…
The soft matter comes to fill the sticky world
With an exuberant waves of liberation
The clumsy stork sheds the fever
Embraces the warmth, melting the corpse

Oh materialistic workforce…Still the showers
of uniformity!
The colors…the moist sky, pours down
Blood in guise rain

_

In search of honey

My ocean knows the domestic ballads
Where he blends the summer
With the salted fish, and devours
The night grows darker,
With blood clotted crown of sexual desires
Like a brittle skeleton, my humble pen
Sinks into the obscure bowels
The beastly skull tears away my passion
The age has turned into almighty
Burning under water

The moonlit fields shine far away
My cold world of indifference

I beg for a handful of sunlight
Smoldering under the ashes

At The Antonym, we believe that writing is an important tool for women to voice their experiences of identity, sexuality, marriage, love, family, and life. Our magazine is taking a measured look at the Bengali women who have contributed to contemporary Bengali literature. They are all borne out of different life experiences and have created a distinct storytelling style that not only differentiates them from men writers but also from women. Their distinct approaches have made us believe that we could bring a new focus on Bengali women writers and explore and expand our scope in the form of translating their contributions to Bengali literature. To read about the different Bengali women writers that we have translated, please visit the following page of The Antonym magazine:

Feminine Pen: Translating Bengali Women Writers

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