A prism of perspectives
Translator: Krishna Dulal Barua
Publisher: Loopamudra Publications
No. of pages: 66
Price: Rs 100
Poetry provides pleasure because it is closer to the heart and emotions. Suggestions of infinite kind erupt and the reader stays engrossed within the rich kaleidoscope of images and metaphors. Small and mundane attain the extraordinariness in views and perceptions. Life and men are reread, re-envisioned, in the momentary reflection of the poet and rightfully he becomes the representative voice of man and his philosophy.
In the anthology of his translated poems Lines in the Void, Rajeev Barua captures moments of illumined nebula of perceptions in chiselled words and brilliant metaphors. The sensitivity of the poet is not wasted in fluidity of hesitant expressions but is crystallised in mature and condensed idioms. Fleeting time and transient love find a striking chord in Ballad of Dejection, where a “ripened fallen leaf” need not be directed “where to head for’. But in the poems like The Hand, the contour of a hand retains splendour of life and love; it is posed as a sculpted hand fixated “on the loom”.
This solitary figure riveted to the extent of absorption poses like the reaper on Wordsworth’s canvas. Apart from his affiliation to common folk life as projected in Morning Stroll at Bhomoraguri and Firewood, Barua’s poetry sketches individual pathos or serenity of composure of a passerby who is elated at the refreshing glimpse of the scene which is “restless” or the gurgling happiness condensed in the heart of a fisherman who “catches” the sun in his net.
But the golden hue of the sun does not connote an entire fleet of joy for the introverted soul. For, here are moments of deep immersion in the heart and the sensitive yet placid poet intermittently realises the futility of all human attempts that aim at transient merriment. So the inevitable query to his fellow poet is:
“What a poet you are
Without a pond of your own!”
He has earnestly felt the need of a “pond” for oneself which perhaps reflects his mirror image, his other self. You and I in the Office Room is a similar poem that, too, brings to the surface the idea of introspection that takes the vivid form of a one-on-one conversation between the subject and the other. Almost all poems of Barua feel and read like interior monologues. A dialogue is set forth and that brings to focus unforetold experiences and realisations to the creative artist. Life’s gusto is felt in every minute moment and the poet remains an aesthete who is able to decipher beauty in every small act of kindness or a gesture of pitiful love. Looking Beautiful authenticates this dichotomy between beauty and ugliness and real and illusory.
A thoughtful poem in the anthology is Tale of a Pair of Shoes which is full of innuendoes, stark similes and suggestive metaphors. It very blatantly evokes in the mind the image of Van Gogh’s A Pair of Boots which very urgently, as it were, condenses realised situations like the rustic and his ambience. Similarly here in Barua’s poem a few related narratives are woven around the lovers, neighbours and foes of the shoes. The most arresting line of the poem is “Both the shoes had fallen in love with a pair of brawny feet.”
Barua’s images and metaphors, as indicated earlier, are reflective in nature. The cosy security of the “home” offers a stable founding ground for all journeys that the subject undertakes and to the poet home resides on “two bullock carts” evoking along with a strain of melancholia, the reality of dislocated and migrated souls.
The poem Home draws deeply poignant pictures of hope, desperation and calamity and it seems to be one of the best poems in the anthology. Breaking Away and Ballad of the Empty Bottle-1, too, offer some intense metaphoric sonority in images like “Yours wishes are pomegranate flowers” or “The traits of a bottle grow apparent/Only when it is empty”.
The present anthology of the translated poems of Barua can claim another credit apart from the thought, cadence and suggestion of his images and rhetoric. All poems here are very well translated and each of the four translators has retained the candour of the source language. Because of their virtuosity the diction feels fresh; the metaphors tend to suggest in infinite variety of ways and the poems remain honest statements of a poetic heart.
The book will definitely thrill the avid readers of poetry.
GARIMA KALITA
Published on November 18, 2011
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1111118/jsp/northeast/story_14741806.jsp
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