Life’s realities in verse

Book title: Bhao Diya Mrityur Sangit Uthi (Bilingual)

Author: Munindra Narayan Bhattacharyya

English translation: Debashish Bezbarua

Published by: Planet Ink

Pages: 216

Price: Rs 160

Poetry is the earliest form of literature. All our Vedic hymns are examples of great poetry. All the immortal epics are also written in verse. Till the 17th century, everything had been expressed and recorded in poetic codes. Definitely, poetry is the richest form of literature and it is also the most cryptic and symbolic. Apparently, it is most difficult to analyse a poem to everyone’s content — specially the poets’. And, translating a poem in the true sense is impossible. The words, meanings and rhythm of the original poem get compromised at certain points when one translates it from one language to the other. And the dexterity of the translator is manifested as he has to comprehend the sense of the poet in one language and try to keep the gusto and the lucidity intact as he reconstructs the feelings in another language.

The bilingual collection of poems Bhao Diya Mrityur Sangit Uthi has been composed by poet-artist Munindra Narayan Bhattacharyya and the challenging task of translating these into English, captioned Pretending Death upon a Sangi has been done by another artist-litterateur Debashish Bezbaruah.

There are 27 poems in total that covers 104 pages in Assamese and 85 pages in English. Rather than a subtle feeling, an entire event or story is narrated through most of the poems that run up to five or six pages.

Bibhash Choudhury comments in the preface: “Like all serious poets concerned about the craft, Bhattacharyya, too, displays a remarkably incisive but critical dispensation; his perspectives on language, craftsmanship, art, poetic imagination, social values, history, culture and the very subject of poetry itself are interesting forays into a creative realm that has the potential to break new ground.”

And the poet himself says confidently, “Come then, let us find out what I have jotted down — not as poems written by a sincere, dedicated poet though; but as surgeries on the soliloquies, or written installations, by a crazy student involved in art”.

In the poem Post Mortem on Nibaran Bhattacharyya, the poet unmasks everyone around: I too invited/Many poets-writers-scholars... Many asked if/I’d got any qualification/National, global, universal? Then the reality unfolds — I cut the ribbon/Myself/And read out/My bio data. Then the story progresses — I untied the banner outside/And wrapped myself/Stood for a while... In front of Rabindra Bhawan… Suddenly/People swarmed/‘Beautiful installation’/Remarked a few/a critic too appeared... Took a photograph hence/With the title/ Gandhi… Some garlanded me.

In the poem With the Likes or Dislikes, the poet says: “Trust/love/and affection/Are all eternal.” Among the few short titles are Still Today Is, Glimpse of a Workshop, With the Poem or the Novel, Painting, Market Poetry etc, Like a Line of Infinity, To Play We All Together provides good reading while Pretending Death upon a Sangi – the title poem — is actually a satirical story written in verse. Whilst In a Bus One Afternoon, Vision of My Post Modern, At Times I too Feel Like are some of the titles of the long poems.

Another satirical poem is An Adjective for an Adjective.

Though a slim volume, the book is not quite free from printing errors. Debashish, in my view, did a splendid job. It’s a challenge to keep the focus till the last line of such long poems. But still, he could spend a couple of hours tracing and putting in some missing words in place to make the work closer to perfection.

REVIEWER: BIBEKANANDA CHOUDHURY

Published on March 23, 2012

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