NELit review

POST script 3
JULY 01, 2012

SEVEN SISTERS

These my words (for the younger poet)

In these, the words that have caressed The orchards of my dreams, Is the grace of a life-style, The intimate warmth of time. I have no inventions of my own. Like a farmer, I roll words on my tongue To see how each one tastes. I hold them in my palm To see how warm they are. I know words are the lusty offspring Of mans noble creation; But I am a mere poet And in these words that I have relayed From other shoulders, Is mans cruel experience And the mauling of history.

For poetry: a single prayer

The poets voice rebounds against mercilessness - An uncontested echo. At the tip of his pen quiver The promised poems, his entity. Threatened by a tenseness of nerves, In the famished poets feeble voice Is the hymn of grief, the freedom of art Let me finish this poem like me; The message of blood dies struggling In the squalor of its denuded body, Holding a quaint banner of the future. Protect my right to hammer to fragments The aloofness of familiar words Or the stamina of the unvanquished sword That slaughters a futile reality About to die of anaemia.

iNKPOT
HIREN BHATTACHARYYA TRANS: DN BEZBORUAH

Four poems
1 With my hand on neck-high sunshine Of the pregnant earth, I took stock where the water was And where the smell of crops The unvoiced prophesy of unborn days. ======= 2 Between my wishes and my waiting, A breezy winter. ======= 3 After all, death is also a crafting: An unappetizing sculpture chiselled out of lifes granite. ======= 4 I broke the earthen flower vase Knowing that flowers blossom In the complacence of my wayward mind.

Postscript
Every day is a death for me; Longevity is only in the line of my palm. This is how I get on. When I hear the footsteps Of the dream fairy, I reflect: Life is more beautiful Than it can be.

A post-prayer poem
In the way your spring suffuses the sky Is the horizon of a millennium of my prayers, From whose steps I see the destiny of my consequences, With heaven far, so far away. A terrifying inertia clenches my heart In its teeth. Take me up the golden stairs Of loves caravanserai nearby. The trees have forgotten their promise; Heaven is far, so far away. In my stricken tongue is my eternity, In my off-key prayer, Gods unequalled glory. Heaven is far, so far away.

Sound of the flute

As I trudged through the darkness, I suddenly heard The clarion call of light. In my bones, preserved to make A devastating weapon, I sensed the sound of a flute. Under my blood, within my bones The flute had lain hidden all these years. And there I had heaped Some dried leaves of time. Who could have cleared those leaves? Whose were those soothing hands?

Partaking
You know very well This poet has nothing else Just a lone shirt And that too parting at the seams. Love must be just like this: Baring covers to soothe the heart.

THREE SCORE ASSAMESE POEMS

Compiled and translated by DN Bezboruah National Book Trust, 2009 `35, 66 pages Paperback/Poetry

Veteran journalist and former president of Editors' Guild of India, Dhirendra Nath Bezboruah is also a writer and translator

Hiruda and his musical journey

Hiren Bhattacharyya is renowned not only for his poems but also for his lyrics. His poetry is imbued with strains of soulful music. Siba K Gogoi interviews some of the artistes who have lent their voices to songs of Bhattacharyya, the Poet of Love and Sunshine
Birendra Nath Datta

Pulak Banerjee

Zubeen Garg
HAT I like best about Hiren Bhattacharyya is the way he writes, a gift very few authors or poets have. His style of writing is unique; he has a flair for enunciation of beautiful thoughts and emotions in fewer words. The beauty of his language lies in the syntax he has mastered, another reason why I admire his poems. Every poem or song of Bhattacharyya feels like a story; from the Class V student to the 80-year-old, everybody can derive pure delight from reading his poems and listening to his songs. He is my idol in that he has taught me how to write or compose a song. I have, in fact, learnt many things from him. Words cant describe what he means to me ours has been a father-son relationship. Whenever I visit him, I find sheets of paper, pinned together, on his writing table containing two to three songs, bearing the note For Zubeen. He has written very less, around 15 poems, during the last 25 years, but they are real gems. Hiren Bhattacharyyas poetry encompasses all aspects of life. Not many people have penned poems on diverse subjects: love, sorrow, nature, patriotism and so

IREN Bhattacharyya is, without a doubt, one of the greatest Assamese poets, but the fact remains that he started off with lyrics. His first book, Rupali Nadi Xunali Xaku, which he published with late Jayanta Barua, was a compilation of lyrics. Basically, Bhattacharyya has a special liking for songs and this is manifest in the lyrical quality of his poems. He has written serious poetry with a musical touch to them. An example of Bhattacharyyas enthusiasm for music is the making of a cassette of recitations of his poetry. I was in Tezpur then; he went there and asked me to sing two songs Mur xunor xuleng oi aghunore roud ... and Xatukhon xuria noi for the album of recited poems. And I did that. The cassette begins with Mur xunor xuleng ... and ends with Xatukhon xuria noi ... I had previously sung Xou siris dalot bohi ejoni sorai..., another song by Bhattacharyya. Nature and patriotism are two recurring themes in his poems, and when he sings of nature he goes into communion with it. Bhattacharyyas poetry reveals his political and social consciousness, revolutionary zeal, and progressive outlook on cultural traditions. He can express a very serious thing in simple, condensed language a style of writing that many authors today try to imitate. When he started writing poems some people would wonder why he used short words or fewer sentences. Perhaps knowing this, he once said to me, One day my poetry will find place in textbooks. It would be easy for teachers and students to teach and read short poems. He can liven up a situation with such remarks, witty, yet mean-

on. I have sung around four songs composed by him, the latest being Herou banhi... from the CD with the same title. These songs Gane ki aane xuror xupane xupane, Herou banhi ... and Bandhu... have been received well by music lovers. Im going to launch the Bengali version of Herou banhi soon. Im doing everything possible to help Bhattacharyyas recovery.

ingful. Many people may not know that Bhattacharyya is also a cricket buff. When I stopped appearing in public as a singer for the sake of my teaching job and research work some people were eager to know why I did that. After the release of my first album, Monor Khabar, which was produced by Ramen Choudhury, Bhattacharyya told some people that I was not out but had retired hurt. Bhattacharyya and I are very close, in the sense that were on the same wavelength.

IRUDAS poems are so beautiful. He uses short, soft words to describe various emotions and feelings. That is why his poems are different from those written by others. I have sung around 15 songs of Hiruda, mostly poems from his collection Xugandhi Pakhila, including those for an audio CD, also titled Xugandhi Pakhila. Its tough singing songs adapted from poems. I remember Hiruda once telling me at a recording studio in Guwahati to read between the lines of his poems that were chosen to be made into songs. The audio CD, Xugandhi Pakhila, was produced by three former members of the ULFA. One of them told me that when they had worked for the organisation they would sit on rocks under a moonlit sky reading Xugandhi Pakhila and listening to songs from my album Xuwarani. During those days they, he said, always felt that they should make a cassette based on Xugandhi Pakhila and ask me to sing the songs. I like some of Hirudas songs very much: Andhare andhare eti junaki uri ahi mur bukut xule..., Eta ajuhat pale moi gusi jabo paru, Mur jibonere mur moronere xojai rakhibo... (from the album Tumar Gaan), Ahin toi ahili mur priyare... Aji mur andharote tupani bhagil... However, my all-time favourite is Eta ajuhat pale moi gusi jabo paru Hiruda also likes this song very much.

Tarali Sarma

M fortunate to have a close relationship with Hiruda. I have been a keen reader of his poetry. Two striking characteristics of his poems are visual content and lyrical charm. Hirudas poems are truly extraordinary but written ordinarily, each telling a short story without any sense of incompleteness. The way he selects words and uses short sentences to express various layers of emotions is unparalleled. A human consciousness runs through his poetry. Like Gulzars, every song of Hiruda has a colour which symbolises a particular meaning or emotion. He plays with colours through words. I feel

Jyotiprasad Agarwala did this in his songs such as Jilika pakhire.... After reading a poem of Hiruda two or three times, one feels that the words of the poem spontaneously take on a tune and then echo in the deep recesses of ones mind. Hiruda had written five songs for my album, Mukoli; however, I took two: Mon komuwa tular dore posua botahat ure... and Aji mur xajor tora montu dekhun tenei mora... So far, Ive sung three songs of Hiruda. I wish to sing more songs composed by him. The Assamese nation needs Hiruda. The youngsters should appreciate and sing his songs.

Anindita Paul

T was with support from borta, or Hiruda, that I had started my career in the Assamese music industry. Its 12 years since I came into contact with him. There was a time when he would come to my house and listen to my songs. He always asked me to keep track of Hindustani and Bangla music in order that I could improve my singing. What make bortas poems stand out are their expressiveness and brevity. Borta has a very modern approach towards his work. He always lives in the present and looks at an issue from different perspectives; unlike many writers, he practises what he preaches and there is no

difference between his writing and the person that he is. After the launch of Bilot Tirebirai Padumor Pahi Oi, an audio CD of eight timeless songs by Kamalananda Bhattacharyya, borta gave me one of his poetry books, Xugandhi Pakhila, which I happily read. He told me that every poem, in a sense, was a song. However, music director Utpal Sarma later suggested that I should sing Bokul phular dare..., an old song of borta, which was later included in my audio CD, Tomar Prasangshat. It was a blessing for me that borta himself named my audio CD Tomar Prasangshat. Though I moved to Mumbai in 2003, I try to meet borta every year, when I come to Guwahati. Im lucky to have his love and support.