by Joy Goswami
Is in Olu’s memory. The minute you ask, she’ll think a bit
And tell you which quasar has been misplaced by scientists,
Which black hole is where—left lying at the outskirts of the cosmos
For so long no one discovered it—which great ball of fire exploded when
Exactly where its pieces are still hurtling—
Which thing in this infinite house has been left carelessly where and
Forgotten by the Creator—
Ask Olu—she probably remembers everything…
Hamida
Her name is Hamida. She carries the shopping bags.
If you tell her, she’ll carry them to your doorstep.
No one calls her by name. The vegetable-vendors, the fishsellers say:
‘Give it to the dark girl, she’ll deliver it.’
There she comes, through our lane, right behind Kaberi—
Hamida with two bags big and small in her hands…
In the small bag the moon. In the big one the spinning earth.
In the big one rivers, trees, oceans, mountains, deserts, slums and cities
Crores of ants, are they people? Like matchboxes
Hundreds of houses
Spin along with the globe. Bursting through the bag the moon
Gleams in the sky. Trampling on space
That dark girl walks on…
Look look! Below her feet
Lakhs of lights dance!
Aei
Every morning a gentleman walks very slowly down that gully.
As soon as he crosses the veranda where I sit and write, he raises
His hand and calls: ‘Aei!’
Immediately a riksha going by on the main road
Comes to a halt. The gentleman says, ‘So? Will you go?’
Today he raised his hand and called ‘Aei’—instantly
The earth stopped its yearly revolution
Began circling around in the same spot
Who knows how
Who knows how, losing all gravity
Houses and homes brick and wood men and beasts plants and trees
Began flying off into space. I began flying
The gentleman began flying
And so did the empty riksha before us…
Garbage-man
Two iron wheels attached to a rattling pushcart,
Its handles in his fists, here comes the garbage-man.
He crosses our neighbourhood—just where it ends
There’s a ditch. Raising the handles, tilting the front of the pushcart
He drops the garbage in the ditch.
Not garbage, his pushcart is full of nuclear weapons—
All the weapons that all the countries have hoarded on this earth, that garbage-man
Has collected—is dumping—
They dribble from the ditch
Into the sea below and the entire sea
Winds into the sky—a single pillar of water
The sun has come down to stand exactly at the earth’s head—
Has opened its mouth wide—
It will drink water now to its heart’s content
The sun has no knowledge of salt
Vegetable-seller
There goes the van-riksha, a railing fixed to its back. It carries
Gourds, brinjals, cucumbers, pumpkins, bunches of greens.
Anusree, Kanchenjunga, Deepalok, Shubhosree, Sushma
These names written on them—a row of apartment buildings.
The van-riksha passes before them. Stops. From above, very young housewives
Lower their bags. Second-floor third-floor fourth-floor—
The day’s vegetable-shopping is climbing up by the bagful.
And again the van-riksha
Goes by at a slow pace
Blowing its horn. Through upstart gully and aristocratic street
Moves on, on, I see the vegetable-seller isn’t there—
Gargantuan iron chains
Wrapped around his body his head
Atlas hauls behind him
The border villages of Bengal, farmland upon farmland, trees,
ponds, fields of desolation…
Enemy
Sunlight is my enemy.
The specialist has warned me: Be sure not to expose yourself to the sun.
Even when I’m in the car—the sun that enters through the windows
Knocks me out with a seven-day fever.
In bed in bed in bed at one point
I see saplings of grain have risen on my hands
And piercing through my chest a coconut tree.
A host of nameless bluish-white flowers have blossomed right here
On my shoulders my stomach my waist my feet
Swaying in every breeze, the leaves of coconut trees glimmergleam in the sun
Golden grain glitter-glints
And I feel no pain, honest, despite having so much sun on me!
I find my friend
I find my friend behind the window.
I find my friend in the faces of office-goers
One behind the other. I find
My friend in deep water.
I see my friend becoming a fish and merrily going off
Into the belly of an even bigger fish.
I climb onto the bank with my life. Wiping my body my hands my feet carefully
I begin walking again, every day in the old city—
Aiming from one window to the next
Love
The train came torrential over the bridge.
The light from moving windows, the light from moving doors fell into the water
And rose on the trees along the river
You had arrived one day in exactly that way.
Your entire light had travelled over and away from me.
I place my hand on the trees. I see they are still wet.
Everything was entirely clear to everyone. Except me.
Spice grinding
The man has come to prepare the spice-grinding slab. Banging hammer against iron
He chips away flakes from the body of the slab. Once he’s done
It’ll be fit to grind spices on.
In towns across the globe
Car-bombs explode—abandoned briefcases, parked scooters
Explode—every day flakes are flung off the body of the earth—around the slab those aren’t shards
Of stone, they’re rows of dead bodies
Their hands and feet torn…
Mother Earth, is someone going to grind spices on you?
To a dead friend, in a dream
Down the middle of the river goes a burning boat. I’m on the banks of the Churni River.
The boatman’s standing at the helm. The fire burns only
In his hair—thick, curly hair.
The oar in his hand also burns. The fire now rises from the oar
To his wrist, his arm. Flames from the stern grab his knees.
Just then the boatman looked at me.
Doesn’t he seem kind of familiar?
As he moved away he waved his burning hand once.
In that instant, I knew him. Chandan, from our neighbourhood.
Dawn
At dawn the fisherman went to sea.
From a wobbly boat he flung his net
Putting all his strength into his hands
He pulled it in to see
Instead of a big fish—you, the sun, just risen!
Ice-cream van
The man in the saddle pedals the cycle-van forward.
Attached to the rear of the cycle is a square box.
Cracking open the afternoon with his cry ‘Ice cre-ea-eam, icecre-eea-m’
He enters through the chink. The afternoon breaks into two scoops
And falls in two directions. Raising its head from inside
The man’s box, a massive ice-covered mountain stands
In the middle of the city…
I see it’s that man, hol
ding the mountain on his little finger!
Roll-shop
The roll-shop. A girl, maybe thirteen or fourteen, pumps the stove.
She will fry the rolls. Three customers wait.
The man I used to see before, haven’t seen him for a while.
Is he her father? Is he ill at home while she
Runs the shop? Doesn’t she have to study?
Who else is at home? Her mother? Her brothers and sisters must surely be very young?
She runs the shop all by herself. Her grimy face goes red
As she pumps the stove hard.
The fire blazes up. I say, Girl, you run the world!
As soon as I say that the griddle flies off from the stove. Flies up into the sky.
In the fire lit by the young girl’s hand, I see griddle after griddle,
Each one a flaming disk, roaming the empty spaces of this universe!
From the dustbin
Leaning over, he rummages in the dustbin. An open vat. Examines. Picks up.
Stores away in his jute bag.
Bare-bodied, a dirty dhuti wound around his waist.
He was in front of my house a little while ago. Now he goes along the main road
Stands in the middle of the traffic. From the road he collects
Buses, mini-buses, taxis, sergeant-bikes, Santros, Innovas and double-deckers
Consigns them to his bag. A second ago
He picked up the Park Circus flyover. There goes Jeevandeep!
After collecting South City Mall and Chatterjee International
He picked up Shahid Minar, then the second bridge
Put them into his bag and gave all of Kolkata with all its houses
A good shake, then, flinging the bag on his back,
Walked into the Bay of Bengal, there he goes, splashing through the middle
Of the sea, the water doesn’t rise above his knees—holding on to his finger
A toddler walks over the water with teeter-totter steps
A child who has just learned to walk, who
Had been thrown into this city’s dustbin one day.
Ballad of the True One
(From Unmaader Pathokrom [1986])
The day we picked up mother’s corpse
From the river of fire,
Her whole body burning, do you remember, sis,
The suspicion in the neighbours’ eyes?
Long-beaked, fur-bristling, hackles raised
They came forward, the head honchos,
Said, ‘This assembly rules, listen—these two
Have no right to carry out this cremation.’
We fled the village that very night
Mother’s body on our shoulders, the moon burning above
On our way a poisonous marsh
On our way lime quarries and salt pans
My fingers fell off, your chest
Parched with the pungent fumes of limestone
We were unfed, unpurified,
We were the carriers of the corpse
The country we arrived in, dead trees everywhere
Hides of dead animals hanging from the branches
By the banks of the last river on earth
We lower our mother’s skeleton
Sis, I say, we won’t burn this body
We will store these bones in the hollow of a tree
We are untutored. The ones who come later, they,
Will they not have learned what’s right?
Our bodies are covered with fungus,
We have no eyes, the hollows burn with grief
I have forgotten if I was ever a man
You cannot remember when your season ended
In the east a skull-white light
Behind us darkness like evening descending
In the middle of the last crematorium on earth
We sit, two corpse-snatchers
To you, iron hawk
(From Bojrobidyut-bhorti Khata [1995])
This will not break my dark trance, iron hawk, no
matter how you drill your beak into my skull, no matter how
you place your two feet on my two shoulders, your thorny
feet will not break my dream, iron hawk, my
eyes are not in your control, my fingers, my ribs and bones,
my spine in your control, my
sitting and standing, nose-blowing, hiccupping are in your control,
my cushions my pillows my cups and saucers,
my clothes, doors and windows, bells and whistles, my
serenades are in your control, but
my mind has upped and left, the minutest of minute particles, has
taken the speed of light, what will you do about that, iron
hawk, no matter how you
drill your beak into my skull you will not find my brain
fluid anywhere, hard, black, hot
your beak will not succeed bent broken iron hawk, your
countless internal machines grind and groan, your countless televisions jingle-jangle,
the screams of countless airplanes rising and falling, battles, compensation,
handshakes, slaughter and the appointment of spies but what
will your salt-and-pepper spies do about me your baby-faced spies, iron hawk,
in front of me now a fog rises from a sea of fire, the sun
floats away, the sun peels off, this ocean made of a dead star
and incalculable suns
I’m slipping through a crack in it and emerging I’m revealing myself
through its other-mouth
at the spot where before me a tremendous lump of heart is present
in all its vibrations
my eyes like a ship
descending into its midst … sending news, sending news,
Ah! distant
distant news
pre-birth news
engulfing me…
Meanwhile, you, iron hawk, you can do what you like with this body of mine, it doesn’t bother me at all!
Notes on a funeral procession
in memoriam, Shakti Chattopadhyay
(From Joyer Shakti [2008])
The cars move, slow, clouds move, slow, and waves and waves and waves, above the waves lamp-posts move, shops move, postboxes move, rolling bottles toppled chairs empty liquor shops move, empty double-decker buses climb the hairpin bends up the mountain, and wheels and wheels and wheels, hey flower-filled car, ask your wheel how much time it takes for one rotation, how much time does the earth take for one rotation, the high-rises of the sun, brimful of cloud, leaning over every cornice baby-face doll-face old-face, hey old man, your car moves, slow, how much time will it take you to reach the crematorium, how much time to be born, today which girl gives you the eye full of tears? Don’t you wish you were reborn by the water, old man! Don’t you wish you could fold your limbs back into being a foetus again? Such a song and dance, so many cloud-battalions, such splashing flying away stumbling, such swallowing of glasses to the last drop of glass, digesting broken shards, don’t you want all this again? Cars move, slow, can’t tell if they’re moving at all, wheels roll, slow, can’t tell if they roll, if the sun tilts—the boy, your boy, is staring at your face fixedly, when the car moved, your head shook, he wonders, will you turn on your side now? All these days you kept shifting death from this pocket to that pocket, death, by your head, kept it on the table and slept, hammered it into the wall then snatched it like a ball, cars move, slow, your daughter holds her mother by the hand, with her other hand she shades your face from the sun, the houses lean over from the sky, people in every cornice, people all over the roads, cars move, namaste, water moves, namaste, night moves, namaste, thousands of boy-gangs swim ahead, no one can see anything, the poets of centuries have risen from the dead, the car moves slow like some creature, sitting on its back with incense in my hands, I can see hundreds of dead poets, known unknown, from the word ‘anonymous’ written below ancient texts they have embodied themselves
and risen into this procession, the procession moves, water moves, night, where are you floating off to, old man! Whose corpse are you now? Where is your house? Don’t you understand? Death! Have you lost your mind’s-eye, everyone can see you are floating upwards on a raft of fire, the door to the fire-pit is closing, and at that very instant I leap forward, grab you by the collar and pull you out. I shake you, I prop you up by the stream of night, your fire tears away with a flutter in my hands, I point my finger to show you, see, old man, see that, because at that moment in the sky the spinning firework of a galaxy swerves and tears off in the opposite direction—the entire sky filled not by the great snake, but yes, thrashing its tail, a tremendous piece
P.S.
Insights
interviews
& more…
CONVERSATIONS WITH JOY GOSWAMI, 2005-2013
In this section are included two formal interviews of Joy Goswami by Sampurna Chattarji as well as relevant transcriptions of conversations between the translator and the poet on various aspects of writing.
If I felt I was going to repeat myself, I have not written.
1 September 2005, Mumbai-Kolkata (a telephone conversation)
Bengali poet Joy Goswami (JG) in conversation with his translator Sampurna Chattarji (SC) on how he makes poetry; on flight, rescue and the terrifying confrontation with the unknown. First published on http://india.poetryinternationalweb.org
SC: Over the years, from your first book to your latest one, how much has your writing changed, how much has remained the same?
JG: I have changed, and my writing has changed. In fact, with almost every book, I have tried to do something completely different from what I have done immediately before, according to the life-changes I experienced. If I felt I was going to repeat myself, I have not written. Once a writer creates a language that he likes to think of as his own, that style or that kind of writing gets institutionalized. Then the poet feels safe. The poet starts writing to suit mass expectation. As Constantine Cavafy said, the poet who knows his audience is limited is truly free to write.
You see, my writing has been closely linked with the life-stages that I’ve passed through. As you know, I am a high-school dropout.
