TRANSLATED FROM THE HINDI BY DIPANWITA BHATTACHARYYA

 

The Last Sun

On the last day of her life

The girl looks at the sun

by opening the window

moving the drapes aside

tattered and battered

from the threshold 

 

in her desire for misfortune

she takes out

a bowl full of rice

from the pot on the stove

without shedding the boiling water

 

months later, rocks peak

from the snow-covered mountains

 

months later, relieved from the winter’s curse

wheels run again

 

months later, the heart of the mountain 

trembles again

by the frenzied railways

 

birds nibbling on grain

reached the railway tracks

 

months later,

the track is stained 

by the blood of a learned bird

---

 

Hypnosis

when I read it

all the black alphabets ran towards me like horses

they came in hundreds 

I tried to push them

with my ten fingers and two palms

I tried to reach them

they have horse power 

and my mitochondria are incapable of love

I have dug my grave in a small crack

around his glasses and wrinkles  

I will go with him 

his glasses know that

---

 

I will be killed

I will be killed by that crowd

from whom I think differently

 

to not think like the crowd

is not to be against the crowd

instead, it is for their good

so, the crowd cannot be herded 

like sheep

 

it nevertheless is so 

that the different is usually killed 

by the crowd

---

 

I am Drowning

I am drowning 

in a pond

a small pond

 

beside which

there is a school

and a temple, a little far 

I’m neither learned

nor religious

death is certain

 

I do not know how to swim

jumping into the pond

without knowing how to swim

that too on the day

when the school is closed

and the temple is open

it is uncanny to invite death

when the school is open

 

it is uncanny to invite death

into the world

when the school exists

---

 

He Said

he said

you’re so lovely Anna

and the world shrank

and became a word

 

he stroked my lips with his fingers

and the river shrank and became a line

 

he caressed my hair 

a sentence was born out of the fallen leaves

 

and when he said yes

the sky of hope

became an extinct language

 

then one day

he raised his finger

that day

the sun, the moon

the clouds and the sky

all rose and went up

 

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Also, read a Bengali fiction written by Ahana Biswas, translated into English by Aritrik Dutta Chowdhury, and published in The Antonym:

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