topics: |  poetry | bengali | translation | bi-lingual

Nandimukh

I am "her" voice, recounting her tales,
from the vedic age to the 21st century.
The fire that has remained stifled in the ashes of history,
smothered by time and age,
I am that woman -- I speak of her.
I read tears, I write fire,
I live in infamy and consume its ashes.
I endure violence, and still breathe fire.
I live as long as this fire burns within me.  [drop "this"? the?; within -> in?]
It is hard to endure the scorching heat of the flame
that my words kindle...

The blood-mark 38

Man, I've never raised my hands against you.

When you first parted my hair to put the blood-mark,
That day was I wounded, but I didn't say a word.

On parched earth, no flowers bloom, no peacocks
spread their tails
But we've always dug the same dunes for your water.
Lifting our sons, we've seen glow-worms, pointed out Orion.

We know the earth's a woman; the sky first man:
Why then have you bound my arms with chains?
Nor let me see the sky for a thousand years?

Don't insult the earth on which you stand.
Man, I've never raised my hands against you.
	    - tr. Carolyne Wright and Paramita Banerjee

Mother of Universe

the open wavy tresses of my hair
radiated into the sky, making storm clouds
my green patterned starch-cotton skin
crept up, creating the lliana of forests
the hum of melody from my throat
stolen, turned into cuckoo song
the babbling nonsense of my voice
became the lingua franca of vast populaces
my tired sweat mingled with the smell of my period
creating the moist aroma of dry earth hit by rain
nurtured by the tendrils of my hunger
swaying-green ricefields came up
to bathe me were the rivers born
to dry me came sunshine
in the heat of my anger, flintstones
flashed into flickering fire.
my fierce need for love created man
in my body was grouted his seed-sceptre

and then -
    in my womb was born this universe.

    (from Kathamanabi, translation
    Amit Mukerjee).  Unfortunately the line "in the heat of my anger,
    flintstones", is missing in the book, one of many typos that take away
    from these translations.