I will kiss you endlessly through days and nights, holding you tight in my arms, filling in, from mouth to mouth, oxygen, honey, wine, and the libido of a lioness- I will never let you grow old. I will set upon ageing and death a hounding dog. I will send you love-letters in blue cover everyday (Love-letter is the best aphrodisiac, neither ashwagandha nor viagra.) Even so, I will bring you shilajit, gold dust, administer you with hormone-therapy. Whatever is within my reach I will bring for your rejuvenation- through magic, dreams, and overwhelming love. I will kiss you endlessly, through days and nights, holding you tight in my arms, filling in, from mouth to mouth, oxygen, honey, wine, and the libido of a lioness. And, clasping my skeleton in your breast, you will remain my woman of eternal youth!
Aliens in the Metro
Aliens are seated in the Metro rail. With their eyes glued to their smartphones, and their headphones plugged into their ears, they have shut out the earth's reality around them. Their faces are robotic and restless, being totally commanded by the signals of the virtual world. Rows and rows of these seated aliens make a grim and scary sight.
The coach has a few near-extinct humans too- some old and weak and desolate humans, some non-digital, non-virtual, nature-dwelling humans- who are standing before these aloof aliens, in rueful silence. Their eyes are full of ancient despair, like the eyes of mountain-gorillas in Africa. One frail old man is clutching a real poetry-book in his hand,like a priest clutching a cross in a dark place haunted by the digital-devil. Everything in the coach is trembling to be transformed into the icons of a vicious video-game.
Translated by the poet
Ranajit Das is an eminent Bengali poet, known for his authentic urban voice and striking originality. He has published twelve books of poems, two collections of literary essays and one novel. His poetry collections include Amader Lajuk Kabita, Ishwarer Chokh, Sandhyar Pagol, Asamapta Alingan etc. An earlier collection of his poems in English translation titled A Summer Nightmare and Other Poems was published in 2011. He has also edited a large collection of poetry from Bangladesh titled Bangladesher Shrestha Kabita in 2009. He has received the prestigious Rabindra Puraskar in 2013. His numerous other awards include Birendra Chattopadhyay Memorial Award (1994), Paschimbanga Bangla Academy Award (2010) and Ramanath Bhattacharya Literary Foundation Award (2019). He has read his poems at different national and international meets. He visited Croatia for a literary tour in 2012. Born in 1949 in Silchar, Assam, he is a B.Sc. from Guwahati University. Later he moved to Kolkata and worked in the West Bengal Civil Service from which he voluntarily retired in 2006. He lives in Kolkata with his wife and son.