Sunday, 15 January 2017

বুদ্ধদেব বসুর “ছায়াচ্ছন্ন হে আফ্রিকা” কবিতার ইংরেজি অনুবাদ O Shadowy Africa



O Shadowy Africa



O Shadowy Africa!
     The sun of whited civilization
            Has now blotted thy last spectre thin.
     O cheer the victory O!
                        The thick and dense darkness is shattered
                        The cloud-grey coast ravished
                                    There the loving merchant-hero has appeared
     Promptly to drench your bare virginity
                                    With the sperm of civility
     Upon the blood-dowry of your afflicted heart.
                                    Be pregnant, O Africa.
     Bring forth the bastard of business
            Hurriedly to your lap.
            Let the lifespan be rounded.
            The plump tongue-lolling greed
            Blood-swollen seed of trade
                                    Let it sprout out full.
                                                            Cheer O,
     The deformed, palsied begotten of impotence—
                                    Cheer his victory O!
     The frenzied lust-crested coward, sustenance is his suicide.

O Africa!
                                    Upon the dormant death of the trader’s trade
                                                                                    Swiftly as lightning
     Time’s deceitful move will impregnate the skeleton
     O Africa! O bawdy continent!
                                    The multitudes of millennial darkness
                                    Of your cleft equator will someday
                                    Be enkindled with severe labour-pain.
                                                            Cheer O,
     The new birth that trembles out churning death,
                                                Cheer the victory O!

Saturday, 14 January 2017

বুদ্ধদেব বসুর কবিতা "একখানি হাত" কবিতার তরজমা ~ A Lonesome Hand

Buddhadeb Bosu Image





Clouds cluster above; a peaceful road lies beneath;

It’s all silence; night cruises midway.

Darkness prevails in the roadside houses;

The sleeping city dreams away.


Fatigue consumes the body, sleep besmears the eyes,

Walking back home all alone.

A rain is looming, therefore,

Hastily I move on.


At the window in a lower-story room

Of a roadside house I by a chance saw

The dim blue light

Of fluorescent glow.


Only this window lets some light out

Rest of the city rests in silent darkness.

I went nearer and raised my eyes to look through

Then and there closed the window panes.


I stole a look of a lonesome white hand

And leaving no chance another

The two panes of the window closed in

And kissed their parts together.



A lonesome white hand, few fingers

A diamond-cut lustre of the ring,

A thin bangle around the wrist, blue light waning,

Eyes’ twinkling.


Drowsy sleep glides in both eyes yet again

Darkness has the whole world consumed:

I’ll be in the clasp of death ere I know

Whosoever’s was that hand.


I return to my private place, and the rain too;

The howl of the wind catches ear;

Tomorrow if I meet the face of whose hand it was

I won’t recognize her.


I sprawl in the bed and sleep has failed me

Don’t know how far the night has advanced;

If ever I touch that hand, never will I know
It was that very hand.