0 to 4 : Sharmy Pandey’s Anti-poems

In English Transcreation : Parnab Mukherjee



Translator’s Note : It has been a decade of reading Sharmy. The transcreation fermented deep within me all these years. Till one night – I took paper to pen. Sharmy brings a unique phenomenon in Bangla underground poetry – it is the use of body as a metaphor.

Sharmy’s poems are graphically sexual and in that sense a weapon. I think she is amongst the very few living Bangla poets who have taken sexuality into realms of realism.

Yes, that is good literature
ask Falguni Roy
ask Ginsberg
ask Amiyabhusan
ask Piyush Dhar

In her poem “Falguni” Sharmy (English Transcreation by the author of this note) writes : “A blue light washes the golden 60s as the taxi driver leaves College street junction – 11 in the night and I lean my body against the seat and I watch the droplets of Magh in the window – Falguni nods his head – and there I can see his beard, white kurta, folded hands – my entire forehead filled with evening glow – my eyes filled with book fair at College Square dust – and I am moving as I am sitting with splintered hands – legs – teeth and my love for carbon…and the roadside tyre burns – and I return home – Falguni’s forehead filled with sweat – and I can still see – somewhere his attacked lips – his frame – stops at Harkata – for two cigarettes – ignition – coconut rope – silence – the fire – black door closes firmly – Subhashda were you there? The burning cigarette – black packet – disintegrating foil – paper – plastic – my body burns with heat – and Falguni after 3 decades has come to further grapple with my consciousness – bulb moves – there you are Falguni…”

Now
Sharmy
I don’t care what you prefer and what you don’t
I still think Ritwik lacked Satyajit’s finesse and that was a lacking
and I still read mainstream poetry
and I think Ferlingetti is better than Ginsberg
and Kalidas is better than Ibsen
and Lautrec is better than Dali
and Badal Sircar is a bigger genius than Shambhubabu
and I still feel Kanchenjunga is the best Bangla film ever made
and I do think
you are the only successor of Falguni Roy
in Bangla poetry
with all my biases
keep it up Sharmy
Bravo!



1. Till my death in Jerusalem


My drops and drop of tears
Wrongly executed strokes while swimming
And the abject tiredness thereafter
Every death is agglomeration of
Gathered wood and
The bluish tinge that colours the night darkness
If my finger melts
O girl! Put the trinklets on – look good
Or you’ll have to
Absorb my sorrow
Tear apart the sympathy
Drape it all with white cloud
Night break yet nothing stops
The nobility



2. 19/4/93


And the light which gave fire
forest stories and crime
songs deposit
liking for the invisible eye
stomach deposits coal
we love old chained darkness
bubble broth mixed in darkness
scissors that turn into hands
darkness that resides in the lungs
nylon melted city drops
you squeeze the neck and the breath
take out the strings of existence
open up your breasts
look for those eyes
emerging
enveloping
phosphorus
igniting the bones marrow




3. Collage


Draw
open up
Distort
Change, Change, Changing
on the earth
stains of reality
After 10 years
the rotten smell from the shake-up of the first book
somewhat less blood
sometime the mass of bones placed incorrectly
dreaming on, dying easily, sky coloured days,
yes, meanings keep changing
and then the gut is dissolved into vapor
let’s talk
let’s cough up all that we thought last year
first cover
first etching
or first love
existential crisscross
crisscross game
transparent colours
canvas can’t take the etching
skin peels off
so I think transparent mask
words will perforate
this mask
sky on my head and we will cross over the forest of fire
guava tree, bougainvillea smell
rain we creep out
where new born
will look at joy
we will keep crying
like a lizard that creeps up
yet no road in forest
no roof
no mind
no transformations
only a blueness where rainbows will change




4. Two Lines I Wanted To Write



Plane, Plane, Plane, Pilot Plane
From Plane came down Suchitra Sen