February 1969 • Shamsur Rahman

Personal Translation

Of all the poems that were included in the national curriculum for Bengali literature, Shamsur Rahman's Februrary 1969 was perhaps the most unforgettable. Even though it was abridged in the textbook, the beauty of its incantatory jolt resonates within me till this day. To me, the cadence is the most immediately arresting aspect of this poem, it has a cadence I associate with fin de siècle French poetry, minus the surrealism. Rahman was a poet of urban estrangement moreso than debauchery and decadence, but I can't help but feel this poem is reminiscent of Arthur Rimbaud's Les étrennes des orphelins. Regardless, the least I could do to crystallise this beauty was, of course, attempt translating it. Minute caution was maintained in order to remain faithful to the original text but helplessly, and decidedly alike, some of my tendencies towards unorthodox syntax and diction found their way to the translation. As Arseny Tarkovsky said, poetry cannot be translated. The highest a translator can do is establish a psychic communion with the original poet; therefore, sometimes minor hijacking becomes necessary.

Why have we come here? What's our drive?  

No scheme of bonus voucher here, no tug of endearment  

Scoff of a round table, jurisdiction's witchery— nothing, not here.  

A circus' timid sick tiger or its gymnastics,  

Neither a girl's flamboyance or hot-air balloon usurpery— nothing here.  

But why are we still gathered here?

I am faraway bastard teak's

Skeletal peasant: destitute and worn out.  

I am Meghna's rower, through storms and rains;

I am factory's labourer,

I am dead Ramakanta-blacksmith's eyebouquet,

I am soilsmudged yard's potter: detached and often irritated, witness of hollowed villages.  

I am a solitary knitter: never spoken Persian, knitted fabrics— obtuse and fine.  

A colourful cinema ticket,

Ashen like some faded medieval pot— sparse,  

An everlooming friend, mixing soil's endeavour in the fine knittage.  

I am tax department's gloomy clark— fly-squatter, running from the chase.  

I am student, bright-eyed youth,  

I am a new age author, Charyapada's deer leaps from my heart every hour; 

In my mind, Rabindric musings arise in new permutations,  

And unfold in this extreme heat of reality,  

In the stark blue of consciousness, many so dreamswans float on astral measures, invariably.

All, each nook of us,  

Why are we here? What is our obligation here?  

What is that tide which pitched us here, down here in the sun of Falgun?  

Maybe because of a certain call to life, we have made the outdoors our home, and our outdoors: home.

Life is but—

Driving the plow hoodheaded in the scorching sun.

Life is but—

Clasping the fresh harvest to your chest, half-dazed.

Life is but—

Rowing in the crowning, hilly tides of Meghna.

Life is but—

Feeling the warmth of fire in a cold, silent December.

Life is but—

Returning home alone wiping the factory grime from your face.

Life is but—

Buying doore saree from the market for Tepi's mother.

Life is but—

Immersing in the pages of book, in the hair of a female classmate.

Life is but—

Marching shoulder to shoulder to the rhythm, waving symbols.

Life is but—

Lifting your fist to the air against injustice, watching intimate weavings of light.

Life is but—

Laying your head on mother's placid lap, pondering many childhood memories.

Life is but—

Entwining patterns in little girl's new frock, braiding handicrafts.

Life is but—

Smile on brother's face, combing sister's pinpoint hair.

Life is but—

Tying flowers to your lover's bun.

Life is but— 

Lying on the hospital bed, alone with yearnings for recovery.

Life is but—

Drinking water sip after sip at the tap in the head of alley.

Life is but—

Standing in the line of ration store.

Life is but—

Distributing pamphlets like sparks, here and there.

Life is but ... ... ... ...  

Look! Again bloomed the Krishnachuras in droves, along the drives of the city, how solemnly!  

Sometimes in rackets, or sometimes while walking along, it feels like as if they are not flowers,  

But flashing bubbles of martyrs' blood, full of mnemonic scents;

Twenty-first's Krishnachura is the colour of our consciousness.  

Against it, flings another colour,  

A colour which does not bring serenity to the eyes, a colour which brings insolence,  

Everyday, in our minds,

On dawns and on dusks.  

Now the streets are littered with that colour, and the whole country is lodged in the grasp of killers.

Me, and many others like me,

Swindled day and night amidst the killers' abode,  

Some are dead, some half-dead, others are starkly resilient, turning and exploding into great rebels.  

Everywhere, humane gardens and Kamal forests are being skewered and scattered.  

Guess that's why even in 1969,  

Salam descends on the streets again, uphigh— hoists the flag.  

Barkat flabbs his chest in front of slayers' claws,  

Salam's eyes today are illuminated Dhaka,  

Salam's face today is adolescent, green East Bengal.  

Watched in the streets today, watched we all common men,  

Letters poured like stars from Salam's hands, falling ceaselessly from the indestructible alphabets.  

And Barkat speaks in deep enunciation, still seeping from the warrior's blood;

And the grief-stricken mother's tears— bloom flowers into reality's vast yard,

And the heart's unreached brunt.  

That flower is our lifeblood, shivering from moment to moment,  

Under the sunshine of glee and sorrow's shroud...

Junktitled #7
Kleptocratic Spectra IV / Glissandra's Hash Sequence