Poems by Ishita Bhaduri

 A Morning of Dreams
 
When you walk in scorching sun
Or in soaking rain,
I’d hold a bird’s feather over you,
And let the golden wing spread its magical canvas
Across the rough terrain.
 
When you break down and cry while fading into the blackness,
I’d float all your sadness away,
I’d shine a light on your tender face
If not from the moon, from a candle nevertheless.
 
So you do not fall crossing the highways,
And life’s wounds do not rise up in the dark -
In nightmares and heartache,
I’d cover the sky in sparkling rays.
 
So crushing blues and crumbling gloom
Do not shatter you into pieces,
I’d fetch golden cloud from the hills
And play joyous music in wonderment and reverence.
 
Touched by the magic, will come a new morning full of dreams.
 
 
 
Promise
 
Yesterday was the Promise-Day
 
Bowed to the tuberose, I promised
 
I’d wrap you up in love and affection
I’d disperse your hurt and tears into the distant mist
I’d dig up the ocean and fetch you a seashell
 
Bowed to the tuberose, I promised
 
I’d give you the sky, a tulip, every day
I’d plant a yellow rose in your lips.
 

Translated by Mamata Nanda 

Ishita Bhaduri is an important voice in contemporary Bengali literature. Born in a family of highly respected poets and poetry lovers, she began writing at a young age and now writes poetry, rhymes, short stories, essays and travelogues. There are 44 published books to her credit including a poetry e-book. She is a regular contributor to various Bengali Magazines and Newspapers published in India and in Bangladesh. She has been praised by reviewers for her acute observation of life, superb artistry, vivid imagery and a perfect sense of a good ending with complete absence of gimmicks. Her poems have been translated into English, Russian, Spanish, Romanian, Taiwanese, Hindi, Oriya, Rajasthani and Gujrati.

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About the translator

Mamata Nanda is a retired academic living in London. She published the first official translation of Maya Angelou’s Collected Poems in Bengali with Parampara Prakashan in Kolkata in 2020. The same publishers will also release her forthcoming Bengali translation of Sylvia Plath’s Collected Poems. In the UK, her English translations of the celebrated Bengali poets Mallika Sen Gupta, Ishita Bhaduri, Yashodhara Ray Chaudhuri and Trishna Basak, have been published in Modern Poetry in Translation magazine, which was founded by Ted Hughes in 1965, and she has performed her work and run workshops at literary festivals on many occasions. Mamata is currently completing Woman in Flames, a definitive anthology of contemporary Bengali women poets, translated into English.

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