TUG AT THE GILLNET

TUG AT THE GILLNET Selected poems of BIJOY SANKAR BARMAN Selected and translated by NIRENDRA NATH THAKURIA GLGLGLGLGLOBALOBALOBALOBALOBAL PUBLISHINGPUBLISHINGPUBLISHINGPUBLISHINGPUBLISHING HOUSE INDIAHOUSE INDIAHOUSE INDIAHOUSE INDIAHOUSE INDIA Bhubaneshwar Guwahati Hyderabad New Delhi Visakhapatnam

Contents Foreword by Sitakant Mahapatra Proem by Nirendra Nath Thakuria 1. Riverine 2. Kite 3. Winter 4. Transition 5. Kashmirnama 6. Fear 7. Streaming Tears of Ketetong 8. The Dreaming Fingers 9. Whereabouts 10. One Day Death at the Radio Station 11. The Death’s Hive is Brimming with Honey 12. Poetry 13. If the Poet’s Clone Tells No Lie 14. A Stretch of Mustard Plants in Bloom 15. First Excavation of Rangringkan 16. Second Excavation of Rangringkan 17. To Ganesh Gohain (a) Thought Architect (b) Release from Colours 18. Marine 19. Still 20. Kohima 21. Fading from the Core 22. Fire 23. Throbbing with Life 24. Revival 25. That Man

6|Tug at the Gillnet 26. Alluring Mountain 27. In the Yawning Fish Trap 28. A Dust-crusted Poem 29. Jatinga 30. Leaving Moments 31. At the Foothills of Panikhaiti 32. To Nilmani Phookan 33. Pigs do Not Look at the Sky 34. Poem in the Late Afternoon 35. Granite Poem I 36. Granite Poem II 37. Ashokastami 38. Pains 39. Wail of the Ripe Leaves 40. Spook 41. My Home 42. Your Sky Yonder over the Sky 43. I Know about a Woman 44. Stone Script 45. No Poem 46. In the Open 47. While Carrying My Grandpa’s Bier 48. Burning Sorrows 49. Mom 50. Bapa, the Stone-Blind 51. Sagun 52. Roots, Grow Inwards 53. Poet Afterword by Mathura Acknowledgements

Tug at the Gillnet|7 Foreword Bisuva Bismriti A Huge Catch of Meanings Bijoy Sankar Barman is a poet of churning the depths of the reader, revealing the major nuances of the poems only apparently simple but immensely complex despite the look of simplicity. He throws the complex emotions of his intimate inner self to catch the essence of poetry. His poetry is not only made of simple words, which goes away through the moment’s lack of awareness. No, they remain to make a large haul of the tiny fishes of dreams and emotions, and ultimately it is a big catch of significant poetry. And it is above all his scholarship, all his knowledge of classical literature. Poetry, it has been said, is what does to time in the life of a human being. We are, poetry reminds us, not only human but a storehouse of passions and emotions. Bijoy Sankar’s poetry tells us all about the catch, all about the tact of drawing carefully the gillnet so that none of the immense catch escapes. The result is a group of poems which are a sincere and complex mix of anguish, hope and despair, sorrow and supplication to the unknown Goddess of poetry. The result is the poet packs them with rare ecstasy and passion. They speak of love and loss; of Being and Non- being and ultimately takes the reader to the depth of realising his own self and find the essence of life and its meaning. Bijoy Sankar rarely speaks of death and the act of dying. But nonetheless the smell of death is in many poems. It is necessary to remember that all art, poetry included, is what time does to man. One may look at the poems like “One

8|Tug at the Gillnet day Death at the Radio Station” which is churning. The city was sucking in all the oxygen around it, and was sucking in all the chlorophyll around it. What happens when all oxygen is lost and all the chlorophyll is nowhere. Death is not mentioned but the poet has to encounter the absence of life; he also meets the absence of green which is a symbol of life. It speaks about a poet’s colleague who has passed away. But that makes the protagonist see “his sad face” and it reminds him perhaps he got “nothing in life”. And yet it happens that another poet “who was used to this quietness eagerly showed the way”. The way not only lends him to the Radio Station but an awareness of mortality, of insignificance of words (which the Radio with broadcast) and a desperate attempt to come to terms with one’s existence. In more than one poem Bijoy Sankar makes us meet the “quietude”, the “silence” and a return to one’s own non- existence which knocks at death and smiles at grief. The poet knows like roots of trees the words grow inwards and then finally touch his soul. Bijoy Sankar is a poet who makes us meet our enfeebled existence in the vast arena of life. I am glad I met his poems which are loaded with meaning. SITAKANT MAHAPATRA

Tug at the Gillnet|9 Proem Tug at the Gillnet is a collection of fifty-three translated poems of Bijoy Sankar Barman. As a leading Assamese poet, as well as a translator of the present generation, Bijoy has made his mark at the national level also. His poems have been translated into English and all major regional languages in India, and into foreign languages like Italian, French, Spanish, Estonian, and Mexican Spanish. Since 2007, I have read his poems, and selected and translated most of his poems into English. Some of the translations have appeared in reputed national journals including Indian Literature, Sahitya Akademi’s bi-monthly journal. I have the privilege of reading his Assamese poems before or after their publication. As a reader and translator, I am impressed by Bijoy’s sincerity and single-minded devotion to poetry. From the very beginning, he has tried to find a poetic voice of his own and a poetic idiom that has roots in the regional dialect of his native place Rupiabathan, a village in the Nalbari district of Assam, (India), where he was born and brought up. In the very formative period of his creative life, Bijoy inherited and absorbed the local cultural elements. He seems to have defined his poetic mission and tried to accomplish it with a rare motivation. The rivulet Kanaikhunda is a central motif in his poetry, which has acquired a symbolic significance for the landscape, ecology and cultural moorings of the locality. The Kanaikhunda runs through the poetic self of Bijoy (For example, “Riverine”, “In the Yawning Fish Trap”, “While Carrying my Grandpa’s Bier”, and “My Home”). In the relative freedom and openness of the rural life, the speaker in the poem “In the Yawning Fish Trap” broods over his predicament:

10|Tug at the Gillnet I’m like the fish trapped in the yawning fish trap I’m in waters still I’m in the yawning fish trap Bijoy Sankar Barman’s poetry is dominated by the rural landscape and ambience memorably evoked by the carefully chosen images and metaphors. The poems “Riverine”, “Kite”, “Winter”, “Transition”, “Fear”, “Fading from the Core”, “Fire”, “In the Yawning Fish Trap”, “In the Open”, “A Stretch of Mustard Plants in Bloom”, “Your Sky Yonder Over the Sky”, “While Carrying my Grandpa’s Bier” and so on, form his core poetic landscape. “Streaming Tears of Ketetong”, “First Excavation of Rangringkan”, “Second Excavation of Rangringkan” and “Jatinga” are the further expansion of his inscape. In the poems “Mom”, “Bapa, the Stone-Blind” and “Sagun”, the reader comes across village folks with their sound common sense, concern and humour. That day there was no power supply The dancing flame of the wick lamp at our evening market teased me A tengra fish has three stings So the herons do not eat it What a poet our poet Who can’t get at things (“Mom”). Bijoy creates the blind Bapa, a memorable and lovable character, who carries a kerosene lamp in his hand while walking along the village lane in the evening. Bapa’s concern for other folks is so heart-warming: Oh it is not for me in this darkness but for you people (“Bapa, the Stone-Blind”).

Tug at the Gillnet|11 The poems “Spook” and “Wail of the Ripe Leaves” give the reader a fleeting glimpse, with a creepy feeling too, of supernatural beings of Assamese folklore. The god is awakened by the splats of baank crazy for raw fishes (“Wail of the Ripe Leaves”). My rib bones in the back shuddered Something scratched them like a thorn apple (“Spook”). Death is a major theme in Bijoy’s poetry. In half a dozen poems, namely “While Carrying my Grandpa’s Bier”, “That Man”, “One Day Death at the Radio Station”, “I Know about a Woman”, “Wail of the Ripe Leaves” and “The Death’s Hive is Brimming with Honey”, the poet expresses his feelings and attitude towards death. Death of a particular person (dear one or unacquainted ones) has occasioned the poems of varying sadness and poignancy. A sombre atmosphere for lurking death is created: Death was lying still under the wild ferns in the shades of the pipal and gulmohar trees (“One Day Death at the Radio Station”). Sometimes death holds no terror for the poet; it is like a bee-hive: The death’s hive is brimming with honey Oh merciful Time (“The Death’s Hive is Brimming with Honey”). This ironically romantic notion of delectable death contrasts with the speaker’s deepest concern for his dead grandfather:

12|Tug at the Gillnet It comes to mind in this makeshift bamboo bed how can he sleep quiet and still and how will he sleep for ever on the edge of the Kanaikhunda in this house of the wind and water with no wall loft door and window (“While Carrying my Grandpa’s Bier”). Bijoy is always cautious about choosing his themes. He neve.r plays to the gallery; his is not the poetry of declamation and verbal fireworks. His poetry springs from his intense personal feelings. In the poems “Pains”, “Burning Sorrows”, “The Dreaming Fingers” and “No Poem”, he rises to the occasion on the issues of deep human concern like violence, child abuse and exploitation, the plight of a blind girl or the oil-well conflagration at Baghjan in Assam in 2020 (respectively). In the eddies of the eyes I search for the bullet that pierced the back of the suckling baby and passed through the mother’s back and the whiff of milk on the cold lips of the baby was it red (“Pains”). The harrowing torture inflicted on the little housemaid Barsha (her back was burnt with a hot pressing iron) makes the poet shudder even in sleep: Those injuries in your back raw and patchy

Tug at the Gillnet|13 at night in dream I see (“Burning Sorrows”). The plunder of natural resources in the name of commercialization, particularly the opencast mining resulting in massive landslides, has threatened the very existence of the indigenous tribal communities at Ledo and Margherita. The persona in the poem “First Excavation of Rangringkan” tellingly recalls such a catastrophic incident: Reduced to debris in a landslide our hilly hamlet Our uproar and cries won’t reverberate again The graves of our forefathers have touched down the underworld The persona perceives Death brooding over the eggs: in the brown cocoon of a butterfly on a dry twig of a siris tree Death laid eggs (“Streaming Tears of Ketetong”). When the symbiotic relationship with nature is snapped for the sake of development, the pristine beauty of nature is lost forever: Under the crusts of dust of roads broadened by cutting the hills countless colours get crumbled yelling at the excavators (“Kohima”). In the poem “Ashokastami” the speaker performs the sacred ritual – the immersion of the ashes with the pinda daan to his parent.

14|Tug at the Gillnet At Ashwaklanta the votive immersion of the ashes The pieces of the burnt out bones were maya washed back by waves to the water edge The clay pitcher with the red cloth was the robes of maya the house of maya Maya was not ashes Maya was the remains of burning This philosophical speculation has roots in the concept of Maya in Hinduism. It is the key component of the doctrines of the Advaita school of Vedanta. The approximate translation of Maya is illusion, which deludes jivas (individual selves). Death reminds us the transience of human life – an illusion, a maya. In another poem “At the Foothills of Panikhaiti”, the speaker evokes a scene of juvenile fun and frolics in a beautiful wood of sal and chegun on the full moon night. The very mention of the Vrindavan conjures up the amorous frolics of the dark god Krishna with Radha accompanied by the Gopinis. At the spiritual level, it signifies the longing of the souls to merge with God. But everybody is shadowy here. The scenic beauty of the wood is marred by the dark smoke belching out of the chimney of the distant refinery – symbolizing the industrial age and the concomitant squalor of modern life. In the poem “My Home”, the mobile tower that scraps the sky stands for the progress and digitalization of communication, but itself a paradox of connectivity and alienation:

Tug at the Gillnet|15 Voices are roaming in the ether Nothing I have heard Someone from a distant place is calling Someone from a distant place is listening Nothing I have heard (“My Home”). Bijoy has written a poem titled “Pains” (Dedicated to Navakanta Barua) that movingly expresses the poet’s deep angst about uncertainty and contemporary violent realities with the allusion to the Hindu myth of Aruni: If with rags I could plug the ducts of surging pains or as Aruni did …………………… …………………… The pains well up from the netherworld There’s none to pray for the dead let the living alone The will-o’-the-wisp haunts the veins of blood (“Pains”). In “To Nilmani Phookan”, another dedicatory poem, the poet acknowledges his indebtedness to Nilmani Phookan, a doyen of modern Assamese poetry. The eyes of the man who taught us how to observe things are dimming …………………… …………………… With the eyes

16|Tug at the Gillnet in my cupped hands I keep waiting for him I want to put his pair of eyes in his own hand The last two stanzas are brimming over with gratitude. Bijoy has mused over poetry for decades and composed a few poems on poetry and poet. He wants to absorb and enrich the cultural tradition of Assam in spite of his limitation as a poet: Let us invite the roots to grow fast through our skin our blood our dark innards (“Roots, Grow Inwards”). After years of hard work, the poet stoically reconciles himself to the home truth: If the poet’s clone tells no lie the poet is to live among the thorns yeah among the thorns ……………………… ……………………… Having crawled under the border fence of dream the poet finds himself in the bed of thorns (“If the Poet’s Clone Tells No Lie”). The poet’s dedication to poetry is not only lifelong; it survives even after his death: Even after my death that unwritten poem will keep scouring me in burnt-out embers (“Poet”).

Tug at the Gillnet|17 Even after my death poetry will grope around for my body of flesh and blood (ibid). “Pigs do Not Look at the Sky” and “To Ganesh Gohain: (a) Thought Architect (b) Release from Colours” are impressive among the poems dealing with other themes – the first one for its sarcastic tone and the second one for the poet’s deep appreciation of the artist Ganesh Gohain. The nature-and-pleasure loving people belonging to the (upper) middle class living in Guwahati hardly bother about any pollutions and the squalid life in the slums and shanties. We the dolphin-loving people do not think of pigs The pigs in their entire life do not look at the sky even once That too we do not know (“Pigs do Not Look at the Sky”). Votary of colours what an artist you are (“Release from Colours”). In the studio of Nirvana with your two eyes how have you managed to shape the philosophy of yours (ibid). As a poet, Bijoy Sankar Barman’s achievements are significant: his meditative concentration, his mastery of the Assamese language, the economy of words, the use of sharp and striking images, and tantalizing suggestiveness that create a poetic ambience – all bear the stamp of his poetic talent. “Still”, “Stone Script”, “I Know about a Woman”,

18|Tug at the Gillnet “Revival”, “Marine” “Granite Poem I”, “Granite Poem II” and “Leaving Moments” are worth mentioning for their bare diction and the pithy messages. “Kashmirnama” is unmistakable for its barest diction and the undercurrent of sadness suggestive of the prevailing political situation in Kashmir. Image is always central to Bijoy’s poetry. Poems like “Riverine”, “Kite”, “Fear”, “Fire”, “Winter” and “In the Yawning Fish Trap” stand out for their fascinating, even haunting, visual images. Lulled by darkness the hamlet on the hilltop burns in my heart as a lamp (“Fire”). On a rotten piece of wood drifting down from somewhere perches a yellow bird sad and lonely On its wings the noon weaves a net (“Riverine”). The will-o’-the-wisp is now sweeping under the feet of the living (“No poem”). Last night After the rain I saw a shadow lying at my head on the floor Was it mine (“Winter”). * * *

Tug at the Gillnet|19 The poems in Tug at the Gillnet are not chronologically arranged; rather they are arranged on somewhat thematic affinity. We have retained nearly a score of original Assamese terms in italics because either they have no equivalents in English or their English equivalents cannot carry the subtle nuances of connotative meanings of the source language. So we have given short footnotes for the benefit of the readers who are not familiar with Assamese culture, folklore, ecology and some events mentioned in poems. We cordially invite our readers to be open to Assamese sensibility. We hope that the universal feelings and concerns of the poet will transcend the barriers and strike a chord with the perceptive readers of poetry. Guwahati 781 014 NIRENDRA NATH THAKURIA

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Tug at the Gillnet|21 Riverine Kanaikhunda the rivulet of my heart quietens down On a rotten piece of wood drifting down from somewhere perches a yellow bird sad and lonely On its wings the noon weaves a net A shoal of colourful fish haul in from the bottom of waters dead faces forgotten smiles

22|Tug at the Gillnet Kite With a tenuous thread you’ve tied me to the temple bell on the lonely hill And you are flying above The bell is swaying in the wind blowing from the west. Like the first shower of summer I have fallen on the heart of grass Where are you Behind the bare trees on the hill top the sun goes down grazing his heart on jhaubons The night is waiting You too have lost your way flying away Or fallen on the bamboo patch unnoticed jhaubons: whistling pines

Tug at the Gillnet|23 Winter Shrouded in fog the distant red hillock a tree leaning over the river Canoes glide over the rapids Night buries the sighs of dusk In the lonely house emptied by the last autumn wind an old violin has so long remained covered in dust Last night after the rain I saw a shadow lying at my head on the floor Was it mine

24|Tug at the Gillnet Transition An unseen locust nibbles at the sprouts of my heart Seen through the draw tube of the microscope the shadowy figures that move about blow the dying embers the tired sentries of my soul Why does the sudden thought of a water bug that keeps floating at night all alone over the cold water of the old pond quiet and lonely want to drown me in the abyss

Tug at the Gillnet|25 Kashmirnama (One) The entire Jhelum is frozen in cold The bridge is a silver necklace getting ashen too heavy (Two) In the empty pot I decked the chinar twig snapped by a bird What if the leaves wilt and drop off how would I lull you at frosty nights

26|Tug at the Gillnet (Three) Here such laughter of yellow sunshine Yet the whispers are so sad and cold (Four) Is it Azan or a wail

Tug at the Gillnet|27 Fear Breaking the nest of the potter wasps on the wall of the stilted hut you said It’s no use After being smashed the nest will rise again as the cracked field is sun-burnt after the paddy is over The blazing fire melted in darkness through the conch bangle you’ve seen a man going along the dark tunnel and in the palm of the scraggy hand your dark face Dew drops fall from the chatian tree On the hilltop is burning a lamp Is the lamp moving towards me or am I going towards it One day I felt like this while trying to get at a vermilion-hued mango with a crook in the haunted wood by the backyard chatian tree: devil tree

28|Tug at the Gillnet Streaming Tears of Ketetong Bulging clouds are hanging Amid the silvery clouds sitting somewhere you shed tears And the Dehing flows on In the burnt-out coals on the black hillock of Ledo and in the darkness in a half-burnt shoe or in the brown cocoon of a butterfly on a dry twig of a siris tree Death laid eggs The streaming tears of Ketetong that scour me Oozing out of the waterspout of the Patkai hills was the water that filled the sacred ponds of Angfew And there a yellow butterfly was peering at its image. siris: also known as East Indian walnut; lebbek Ketetong: a village near by Margherita, a township in Assam Angfew: Angfew Ningkhee, a rare Singpho personality who died of cancer in 2008. He was a keen lover of poetry.

Tug at the Gillnet|29 The Dreaming Fingers (in the palm of the blind girl) 1 Ten fingers came up over the water In the soft whiteness like clouds the moon hid Since then nights have gleamed in the shells of sea snails 2 Pick up the broken necklace in your palm From the fingers sacred grass has grown So soft are the fingers that burst into sobs as I wanted to clasp them Wet with hot tears my fingers put out shoots

30|Tug at the Gillnet Whereabouts Like this pass autumn winter and spring The first shower of summer scatters again the seeds of summer flowers in my garden Throughout the summer season the rain comes only to water them Unknowingly the rain dropped in my heart too a seed of a red flower I soaked in my tears all night long

Tug at the Gillnet|31 One Day Death at the Radio Centre Not the hill as if Death was sleeping flat on his back While climbing up the slippery steps As if with the tips of my shoes I pushed the belly of Death Death was lying still under the wild ferns in the shades of the pipal and gulmohar trees With a rock hung around its neck the noon was leaning over the shameless tower was smiling some horn butted me in the heart A city was sucking in all the oxygen around it A city was sucking in all the chlorophyll around it And what was not exhausted by the city A poet who was used to this quietness eagerly showed me the way this time over the steps by the mute houses to a fragile house

32|Tug at the Gillnet He listened to my poems and in silicon he set my poems While we were passing by the mute houses and coming down along the steps a thin man with a thick frame of specs greeted us in the way Cleaning his glasses with a cotton hanky like the feeblest man he requested his poet colleague You know I’ve seen his sad face He got nothing in life For him at least write a poem The thin man He was not a poet or was he And how chill was that truth I did not know that very day at the Radio Centre one of the poet’s colleagues had passed away

Tug at the Gillnet|33 By the small houses and tall trees while coming back along the tarmacked road I had just looked back once and saw the hill on my heels was trudging on

34|Tug at the Gillnet The Death’s Hive is Brimming with Honey In the house standing closed the wind is still Time is alive in breath The death’s hive is brimming with honey Oh merciful Time What’s yours what’s mine the anthills or the houses The swallow hunts for water perches on the rainbow on the horizon The child’s face seen in a dream Why does it awake me The soil beckons the roots nod In the sporadic flashes of lightning the whirlpool just sucks down The death’s hive is brimming with honey Oh merciful Time

Tug at the Gillnet|35 Poetry Through the tender leaves eaten by caterpillars the sunrays have passed Through the tender leaves eaten by caterpillars the wind has come Through the tender leaves eaten by caterpillars the rain has come down I’m a leaf buff I study the life of leaves I laze in the woody bed fanned by leaves And I see a green caterpillar raising its head want to say something

36|Tug at the Gillnet If the Poet’s Clone Tells No Lie If the poet’s clone tells no lie the poet is to live among the thorns yeah among the thorns The thorns sprout prick the poet’s skin The thorns suck the red blood of his heart That loss is peace the poet knows well The thorns spread their hood hit the poet like arrows Having crawled under the border fence of dream the poet finds himself in the bed of thorns Clearing the thorny bushes what we find is just the poet’s shirt What we find in the shirt is not the poet but his pus only at the seam of his threadbare shirt hanging on the thorny fork is the broken skin of the poet

Tug at the Gillnet|37 Just where is poetry Oh the narrator of thorns explainer of evolution look look Your fingers too are thorns The pen in thorns

38|Tug at the Gillnet A Stretch of Mustard Plants in Bloom A stretch of mustard plants in bloom is beckoning me A little gust of breeze is quivering me A butterfly white and spotless is flapping its wings The mossy pond is suffused with a sob void by name In the cloud of dust just raised by the rattling tractor is standing a lone bare tree A blue bird is perching on it

Tug at the Gillnet|39 First Excavation of Rangringkan Reduced to debris in a landslide our hilly hamlet Our uproar and cries won’t reverberate again The graves of our forefathers have touched down the underworld In search of what the wild grasshoppers hop around and sniff the stones From the darkness of the huge pits of the swamp frogs croak even today As if the cracking whips make black and blue the living memories of our crumbling days Rangringkan: a beautiful village inhabited by the Tangsa tribe on the hilltop of Maloupahar at Ledo nearby the Assam- Arunachal Pradesh border in Upper Assam. Rangringkan (meaning “echoing hill” in local language), with its community church, was reduced to debris as a consequence of illegal opencast mining of coal.

40|Tug at the Gillnet Second Excavation of Rangringkan In the foothills of the echoing hill the days of the dark people crushing down through the crevices of rocks were black Their heads shaded by death their beads of sweat rolling down under their yellow helmets turned black in darkness On the day of the echoing hill tumbling down on the day of those ancient monasteries and graves tumbling down the bell metal gong fell silent And the prayers shed tears Those teardrops too were black

Tug at the Gillnet|41 To Ganesh Gohain (a) Thought Architect The palace of my thoughts is multi-storeyed concrete covering the land Standing on the cool marble of the concrete floor one can’t see the spire of a minar glorifying the sky Breaking through the maze of an ancient tree as the rays of sunlight tread on earth the optical illusion couches on the smooth stones of the dark palace The geometry of perception cannot match up to the knack for a flight of steps of the thought architect

42|Tug at the Gillnet (b) Release from Colours Votary of colours what an artist you are The colours you’ve splashed and poured out in the void With turpentine you’ve cleaned the pallete and washed it too To the world of sight you’ve returned the colours of hers Let the colours play among themselves Dazzler of colours which world do you belong to In the studio of Nirvana with your two eyes how have you managed to shape the philosophy of yours Ganesh Gohain: a sculptor and a leading contemporary Indian Artist from Assam

Tug at the Gillnet|43 Marine For you I’ve picked up a shell of snail My darling I’ve heard people say you may go away by the bend of the hill To the big silk-cotton tree by the river what did you say A yellow leaf fell with a shiver The midnight stilled in the mouth of a pitcher The moon covered by dark clouds My darling having seen the sea I’ve come back For you I’ve picked up a shell of snail

44|Tug at the Gillnet Still Still The dead words want to bury me too beside the boulder split by the thunderbolt

Tug at the Gillnet|45 Kohima Splattered with hymen blood that sapling growing in the mountainous cave is the lovely modar now Her pointed petals are no nails but sharp knives that can carve the hearts of native kanchans or cherry flowers Under the crusts of dust of roads broadened by cutting the hills countless colours get crumbled yelling at the excavators On the first evening at Kohima through the windowpane of the car viewed past two shops with coffins well set out keep burning in a frame faces like roses modar: Indian coral tree; also known as tiger’s claws. Its red flowers, though beautiful, have no use or value. kanchan: mountain ebony

46|Tug at the Gillnet Fading from the Core Somewhere there’s a likeness the makeshift pitch laid on the bed of paddy seedlings at my Rupiabathan* the flickering light of kerosene lamps at the evening market the tug at the gillnet at gloomy sunset I feel like hearing the scream gushing out of the painting I feel like decoding the smile putting it on web link Maybe that feeling is like a dry piece of the bamboo bridge and it may be like crossing over the bamboo bridge and coming back again In the beelthe lilies are all aglow the sun is gleaming on waters With what zeal does the duck dip her head in water again and again

Tug at the Gillnet|47 Rupiabathan: poet’s birth-place beel: a small lake Is it music waves or stillness wind or water nearness or distance sounds or silence?

48|Tug at the Gillnet Fire Lulled by darkness the hamlet on the hill burns in my heart as a lamp The moon comes up Whose grief makes the moon and light burn The cold wind of autumn whips up the faces of the sleeping children The lamp blows out In the smell of the smoking wick I cannot find the way back to the hamlet

Tug at the Gillnet|49 Throbbing with Life Wisps of cotton are wafting in the wind On the rusted iron roofs of our low houses on the spikes of the spiky bamboo grove by the dusty road over the sprouting duckweeds in the parching pond in the roots of the uprooted old tree at noon in the paddy-drying clay courtyard basking in the sun on the frayed sleeves of the shirt having alighted the wisps of cotton are wafting again Drip drop Few drops of rain get stuck to the wisps of cotton

50|Tug at the Gillnet I’ve heard the throb of life in the clay of your body I’ve whispered so close that even the wind can’t hear it Come on Let us catch the wisps of cotton Somewhere in the wisps of cotton is lying something I’ve heard the throb of life Like the wisps of cotton I’m getting soaked

Tug at the Gillnet|51 Revival One day Evening whispered in the ears of Night Do not sleep tonight The sorrows of Night get burnt to ashes Who knows Evening passed by saying On the afternoon a man died of fever shivering On the peak of that hill he’ll come to life tonight for the sake of Night

52|Tug at the Gillnet That Man (In memory of Siva Prasad Thakuria) The man who loved konhuas one day showed me some photographs of konhuas taken by himself That day while sitting beside him I heard in his breath the whizz of konhuas I prayed that the konhuas wouldn’t get soaked in blood The man who loved konhuas one day at daybreak got soaked in blood Cold The sad konhuas of our hearts like a blanket covered him up konhua: a kind of white soft and tender flower bearing plant; Common English term Kans grass (Saccharum spontaneum)

Tug at the Gillnet|53 Alluring Mountain An uninviting climb the white snowy mountain allured us The wind was blowing without a gust Far above on the snow-capped peak only a red cloth was flapping in the wind Turning into a white sheet we wished to cover the whole mountain The full moon light fascinated us Only the snowfall was heard It was not easy to shake off the flakes of snow from our bodies

54|Tug at the Gillnet The snow began to take root in blood the bones too were turning into snow the snow into rock As the two men turning into rocky figures on the freezing night one black deer lifting his antlers gazed and quietly moved away

Tug at the Gillnet|55 In the Yawning Fish Trap During late spring the Kanaikhunda is getting dry In the wayside bamboo grove mongooses caper The rustle of dry leaves sucks me to the back Like the osprey crying on the sands who’s that pursues the noon in bed I’m like the fish trapped in the yawning fish trap I’m in waters still I’m in the yawning fish trap

56|Tug at the Gillnet A Dust-crusted Poem In the bottomless bamboo basket I put the white noon; In the bowl of mindlessness I store the pure breeze — Basho The other bank echoes with my chum’s call In the crevices of rocks I grope for the shells of snails On the mirror of sands the noon cracks up and dissolves in the sparks of the sun O chum Worm casts have come up in my heart I’m quivering like a winter night Stuck in the fork bones like a wood apple is the moon wan as the eyes of the man drifting down who sat on that mossy stone with cupped hands a beheaded old woman who treaded on the witch’s shadow at night

Tug at the Gillnet|57 The people got panicked My chum lift me from the raging whirlwind from the blinding dust from the darkness coming out of the crevices of rocks to swallow the sun Or else if the harsh darkness sucks me in

58|Tug at the Gillnet Jatinga In the foothills of the Borails on the night of the dying summer a bird soaked in rain came flapping its wings and perched on your shoulder brooding Hatched in the mossy patch of sorrow the bird yet to fledge began to flap her wings in the fork of the chest and endearingly rubbed her beak on her mother’s heart The moss of sorrow gathered in the wounds of soul mauled by the tune of the flute With her pink beak and tender wings the little bird weeded the sorrow out

Tug at the Gillnet|59 On the night of the dying summer in the foothills of the Borails the little bird came flapping her wings from somewhere and perched on your shoulder It flapped and flapped her wings and lay still With her pink beak and tender wings your little bird weeded out that sorrow too

60|Tug at the Gillnet Leaving Moments Unknowingly I tread on you Oh doron plant by the river ghat do not moan do not wilt With teary eyes I’ll get back just having landed the raw bamboo litter I’ll hold you up and keep gazing at from a distance how he’s got lost from a glum crowd unseen doron: a kind of plant that bears sacred white flowers (that tastes bitter); botanical name Leucas aspera

Tug at the Gillnet|61 At the Foothills of Panikhaiti Over Panikhaiti hill the moon rises The full moon At the foothills of Panikhaiti Krishna rests In this worldly dense forest Krishna is tired In the heart of Panikhaiti hill there is Radha The Vrindavan is teeming with sal and chegun trees Radha is a shadow The Gopinis are shadows The shadows call Get up Get up dear dark Kanhai Krishna is too tired to get up The shadow of Krishna rises (Is Krishna too a shadow Then whose shadow)

62|Tug at the Gillnet Over Panikhaiti hill the full moon shines In the distance the belching dark smoke of the refinery chegun: teak tree

Tug at the Gillnet|63 To Nilmani Phookan The eyes of the man who taught us how to observe things are dimming The quiet lonely sobs colourless tears have gone up from the edge of his eyes the wild brook too beside his home has gone up To him letters are getting dim the contours of colours are getting blurred our faces are getting vague Like sharp horns the pricks of the needle in the pupils jab at the heart Beside the kite entangled tossed by the wind at the moment birds fly away at the river ghat

64|Tug at the Gillnet where the sun dips my body got stuck It is he who revived it one day removed the scales and light fell on my eyes With the eyes in my cupped hands I keep waiting for him I want to put his pair of eyes in his own hand Nilmani Phookan: a very prominent modern Assamese poet

Tug at the Gillnet|65 Pigs do Not Look at the Sky We the dolphin-loving people do not think of pigs The pigs in their entire life do not look at the sky even once That too we do not know Going upstreams from the Guinjan river ghat you’ll find the Dolphin Point of Dibru-Saikhowa Light plays over the river water or over the pond of our heart In the dazzling light closing our eyes we see dolphins under water We keep waiting With the rhythmic clapping unseen dolphins jump archly Along the railway tracks in Guwahati are seen polythene shanties coal courtyards tarred bodies

66|Tug at the Gillnet Water is polluted Air is polluted Soil is polluted The void is polluted (Only unpolluted is FIRE) We the dolphin-loving people do not like to see the pigs Yet the people who fancy they are dolphins the people who jump archly and come down say clapping their hands Yes yes We live in Guwahati

Tug at the Gillnet|67 Poem in the Late Afternoon (Dedicated to Mahim Bora) Today once again what splashes suddenly Where No water No fish too Like the chokers of bright sands the fish bones are lying in the sunshine of noon In the afternoon namghar the wisps of smoke emanating from incense sticks and censers The clamour of the conch and gong Through the smoke look at What is that —a river No splash even there The fish bones scratch the bottom of the ancient pond

68|Tug at the Gillnet Splash Splash in the tears in our tears that gathered in the cupped hands dripping Mahim Bora: a noted modern Assamese fiction writer and a poet namghar: a unique prayer house, the nerve centre of the village life, of the Vaishnavite tradition in Assam

Tug at the Gillnet|69 Granite Poem I You did not know till I stayed by you Like a shadow I was waiting In the riverine wind you gave a start Being your shadow I was trembling Now it is the afternoon of wet summer Here in our place it’s raining The cowherds have cut arum leaves Suddenly I longed to be your shadow Once again I long to tremble Oh I can’t turn I can’t stand up Climbing up the rocky hill at night have I turned into the shadow of that rock

70|Tug at the Gillnet Granite Poem II I’ve seen a stone crash against another In the bamboo grove I’ve seen something flare up in the wind So long I’ve fancied you as silk cotton as a star and as the moon In my fancy you took the shape of water I took you for a river With golden gossamer I wound you up onto the twig of a dead tree In the flutter of an unknown bird you’ve fallen on my heart You too have flared up suddenly

Tug at the Gillnet|71 Ashokastami The pinda offered with sand Oh Sita Shanti No water But let a river of sand keep flowing the cursed undercurrent of the Ganga Let the sobs of sand flow Let tears flow At Ashwaklanta the votive immersion of the ashes The pieces of the burnt out bones were maya washed back by waves to the water edge The clay pitcher with the red cloth was the robes of maya the house of maya Maya was not ashes Maya was the remains of burning The lump of pinda shed thrice from the palm with the right thumb

72|Tug at the Gillnet Let all ants come to life Let them eat up the share of the departed We too are ants the house of winds Prana Aprana Samana Udana Byana We live on the pinda of our forefathers

Tug at the Gillnet|73 Pains (Dedicated to Navakanta Barua) If with rags I could plug the ducts of surging pains or as Aruni did I keep guarding the clay-ring wells the pains that shoot up and spread over my body instantly do not wear off till we turn blue The pains well up from the netherworld There’s none to pray for the dead let the living alone The will-o’-the-wisp haunts the veins of blood the loamy layers of fields the amnesia of the elders The sobs of the children lie like cowpats in the courtyard of burnt houses

74|Tug at the Gillnet Covering our faces we toast our hands in day or at night in summer or in winter by the fire made with the firewood of the Bodhidrum In the eddies of the eyes I search for the bullet that pierced the back of the suckling baby and passed through the mother’s back and the whiff of milk on the cold lips of the baby was it red Note: Oh Poet, how could I put in my poem this virtual image and its suggestive numbness? Navakanta Barua: one of the most prominent modern Assamese litterateurs

Tug at the Gillnet|75 Wail of the Ripe Leaves ... death before his birth The upstream current eddies around sprouting water weeds There goes down the silver boat of the prodigal son Tossing the run of reddish pink fish that pull the god get enmeshed in your intoxication When the sun sets the god is wrapped in mosses and lily roots The god goes to sleep The first hours of night Who is that beauty passing quietly by looking her face into the mirror of water Groping in sleep for the damaru the god turns over

76|Tug at the Gillnet The second hours of night The god is awakened by the splats of baank crazy for raw fishes ... Sati after a long time suddenly Sati comes to mind The third hours of night Slipping in the deeps Parvati looks for her husband god At a loss in the dark she weeps and at last finds the god amid tossing fishes The fourth hours are far from being over Perched on the broken light post an old owl tilting its head is all ears for it damaru: a small two-headed drum known as the instrument of Siva baank: an evil spirit with long, twisted arms and legs, crazy for raw fishes. It follows fishermen at night.

Tug at the Gillnet|77 Spook Fries were leaping in the braky waters On the other side my baan the light of two eyes pierced the darkness Mud swelled against the baan What were the small holes looking for like the sockets of the man blind at birth Waiting beside the baan I had a cramp in my back The braky waters were astir As I rose to go Lightning flashed across the sky a fish came up from the heart and was swimming at the shoal of my lips Once again fishes were on the run Lightning lit up the sky in the flash I saw a burst of fishes big and small over the baan

78|Tug at the Gillnet A heavy downpour A khalihana fish missed the mud and was tossing beside my feet As I stooped down to pick it up the lightning lit up the sky and one more eye shone in the palm of my hand the scaly fish leaped suddenly And I couldn’t find it My rib bones in the back shuddered Something scratched them like a thorn apple Was it a dream Under the castor plants a small crab halted and scuttled away Next day small bones got stuck in the mop of my moppet’s mom baan: a knitted fence made of split bamboo sticks for enclosing or catching fish/fence-trap khalihana: a small flat scaly fish/dwarf gourami fish

Tug at the Gillnet|79 My Home A tower has come up on the right of my home On the left in the marsh bull buffaloes are wallowing Sitting on the wicker stool in the verandah I’m reading your poems The winter has set in dimming the pale sunlight The mist over the eyes is spreading like a white cloth I can peer You’ve written about a bird I’m jealous of you your easy journey at this age like a bird’s I’ve looked up at the sky No not a single bird is flying

80|Tug at the Gillnet Only on the top of the tower has perched a black bird it’s beak tucked in the wing The mobile tower has scrapped the sky The sky the bird or the tower something has pulled me Voices are roaming in the ether Nothing I have heard Someone from a distant place is calling Someone at a distant place is listening Nothing I have heard Like the Siberian birds they have rested on the round rim of the tower The coming and going of endless words around me Nothing I have heard But I have heard the swishing from the marsh pulling me The little splats of fish have pulled me to the water The water has pulled me to the eyes of the scrawny man

Tug at the Gillnet|81 His home was not there among hyacinths in water On the edge was lying the biriya O poet like you I’m also looking for an unfenced home I cannot fly The man the memories of that man have tied me down The pair of eyes hidden in the hairy roots of hyacinths That day it was noon in the Kanaikhunda biriya: a flat polished piece of bamboo about five feet long used for carrying loads on the shoulder

82|Tug at the Gillnet Your Sky Yonder over the Sky (Dedicated to Hiren Bhattacharyya) Yours is a body of flute Through the window pours in the sun We hear your granular voice wafting across as the smell of ripe paddy from the distant paddy field On the tip of your finger slender as the paddy ear an unsettled grasshopper of the autumn field hops and perches As if affection and clay belong neither to love nor to sunshine Nourished by clay the people of paddy-fields A feeble prayer

Tug at the Gillnet|83 The hearts of paddy ears in milk quiver Also quivers the sadness of last autumn The dusk of dark pits Now let me go home Your eyes are the earthen lamps of Kati Bihu Mother prays by the basil plant silently all alone Hiren Bhattacharyya: a modern Assamese poet, popular for his lyrics Kati Bihu: one of the three Bihu festivals of Assam observed with austerity in mid-October

84|Tug at the Gillnet I Know about a Woman I know about a woman who gave birth to a freak of a child and conceived a second one she footed in her morning walk towards the railtrack never returned

Tug at the Gillnet|85 Stone Script This mossy gate of stone Beyond a city is alive and kicking Carved by history it has been guarded by the unseen hard fingers of time

86|Tug at the Gillnet No Poem No poem The scenes are gnawing at me Flung out by the dumper into the pit the dead white pigs of Bidarbha are grunting under earth Turned belly up the dolphin in Dibru-Saikhowa is whistling something to the birds about to fly back and the water bugs The air is suffocating the trees are dying the blood in veins and arteries is throbbing The will-o’-the-wisp is now sweeping under the feet of the living Bidarbha: a pig farmer Dibru-Saikhowa: also known for the river dolphins, the Dibru- Saikhowa national park suffers the consequences of the Baghjan oil-well conflagration in 2020

Tug at the Gillnet|87 In the Open In the clay courtyard of a yawning noon the shadow of the areca falls on the paddy grains spread out for drying A pigeon is cooing Into my tipsy heart the bow of the seraja keeps rasping rasping My blood is molten wax neither red nor liquid My loving emotions are molten wax brought down like a surging river by the raga Bhagirath the raga Bhagirath Even staying here I see far away from the dry holm

88|Tug at the Gillnet hazy silver boats in the gusty west wind afloat in the Brahmaputra swallows on the wing over the arched roofs of boats seraja: also known as serja, a traditional musical string instrument of the Bodo tribe of Assam

Tug at the Gillnet|89 While Carrying My Grandpa’s Bier Someone leads with the kindling The bank of the Kanaikhunda is slippery after the rain last night Carrying Grandpa on shoulder I am his eldest grandson stepping gingerly so that the sleeping Grandpa gets no jerk so that he doesn’t awake to the jerk I’m at the front bamboo pole on my right my maternal uncle The pair of cymbals aren’t crashing Only the sobs of my maternal uncle is rasping like a sickle My heart’s choked Unseen waves are dashing The butterflies on the tender grass flit around in a flurry and suddenly their wings have come off

90|Tug at the Gillnet Where have the wings gone I won’t look out for them now in case Grandpa wakes “Hey wait, I’ll bring them” saying Grandpa himself will go to find them My Grandpa was a carpenter He made the uneven timber even the unsightly ones attractive the curved pieces straight the rough ones smooth In others’ houses Grandpa fixed beams designed doors built beds made windows The wooden table I used till I passed out my marticulation the book rack above that table Grandpa nicely made While carrying the bier I get choked It comes to mind in this makeshift bamboo bed how can he sleep quiet and still and how will he sleep for ever on the edge of the Kanaikhunda in this house of the wind and water with no wall loft door and window

Tug at the Gillnet|91 Burning Sorrows (for little Barsha) Those injuries in your back raw and patchy at night in dream I see Soaked in tears your shrill voice cracks like stones At the sight of an iron I shudder As if a patch of burnt skin of your back were sticking to it

92|Tug at the Gillnet Mom So funny My aged friend one day while shopping at the evening market asked me Bijoy What’s the shortest poem in the world This sudden unexpected knock on the top of my knowing head I opened the doors pulled back the curtains removed the cobwebs threw open the windows What What is it Who wrote it The Mahabharata is the longest poem But the shortest one Myself a poet (Once made a name as a quiz master) I still don’t know the shortest poem

Tug at the Gillnet|93 That day there was no power supply the dancing flame of the wick lamp at our evening market teased me A tengra fish has three stings So herons do not eat it What a poet our poet who can’t get at things That night there was no power supply In the dancing flame of the wick lamp at our evening market my friend counted and dropped four coins in the egg seller’s hand He put with care the eggs in his bag and with a proud smile in the corner of his lips said Couldn’t answer Ha ha ha Listen ... Just a lone word ... ... Mom tengra: also known as tengara mystus

94|Tug at the Gillnet Bapa, the Stone Blind Bapa my neighbour forty-two years old stone blind yet he doesn’t lose his way I’m twenty-six sighted I can see For the last twenty-six years I’ve seen Bapa I’ve known Bapa But I hardly know the corners of Bapa’s world 42 – 26 = 16 Those sixteen years Had Bapa’s world remained all the same I can’t simply guess Bats are nocturnal almost blind by day keep hanging upside down flap around only at night Opposite is the case with diurnal creatures People also can’t see at night Yet the number of nocturnal people has gone up What is more convenient for Bapa Day or night Day or night Does it make any difference for Bapa I find it ticklish

Tug at the Gillnet|95 I’ve been timid since childhood afraid at night Hiding my face under the quilt I thought Bapa is better off He does not see spooks baank dot kandha at night Where is the fear if he doesn’t see them at all One evening of the new moon it was Bapa who was coming back along the village lane with a kerosene lamp in hand Hello Bapa What with a lamp (Maybe you can see in the lamplight) Oh it is not for me in this darkness but for you people And one late afternoon of the last month Bapa returned as usual that day also from the market with a bottle of blue kerosene forty rupees a litre on the black market clasping the greased catch around the bottleneck He was feeling his way Hello Bapa Coming back Where are you coming from this evening

96|Tug at the Gillnet Eh What to say So much bother last night What what happened last night Oh no No power supply No kerosene Had to sit up throughout the night in darkness couldn’t get a good sleep dot and kandha: different types of evil spirits in Assamese demonology

Tug at the Gillnet|97 Sagun (The Vulture) At the prize-giving function of the M V School though anybody hardly laughed at the ‘bhal Sir’ joke of two green comedians of us our shame giggled Suddenly while listening to the story of ravishing Sakuntala I groped for the meaning of Sakuntala and I came across you O Sagun So I thought Let me do a nasty thing Let me write a poem in your name Not just a hundred but countless virtues you do have Also abuse and sayings At the sight of a vulture flying off towards the western sky a faceless grandma of the old-age home feels a shiver down her spine O Sagun do not fly over there My son’s home is over there O Sagun do not perch on his housetop So helpless is my son

98|Tug at the Gillnet Fly back O Sagun land on my breast if you like Having seen a vulture soaring over his housetop Ponakon calls out Madhuri Looking up they pray on the sly O Sagun sea of virtues Throw up throw up from there What if it falls on our face Can this Sagun curse others Does an old bullock die because of its curse I don’t know But those who are in the know say that the unusual deaths of vultures are on the rise because they eat carcasses victims of diclofenac (What a joke) It is heard once in a remote hamlet in a hill livestock died of some unknown disease in the field The common vultures were looking at the king vulture Two days ago in the wee hours of the morning guns fired in the village Another flock of vultures

Tug at the Gillnet|99 devoured a village The brother from the hill went missing Whose was the body surrounded by vultures in the field We had no way to suss out Like other days that day also covering with their wings the vultures were devouring the body Sagun: vulture ‘Bhal sir’ joke: It is a well-known joke among school children. The joke runs like this: Once a school inspector visited a school, and in a class put a question. ‘What is the English word for ‘Sagun’? When the brilliant boys failed to answer the question, the inspector asked a back-bencher, a real dunce. ‘What about you?’ The back-bencher blurted out, ‘Bhalsir’(meaning ‘OK sir’). Impressed, the inspector declared that he was the only brilliant boy who knew the English word ‘vulture’ for our Assamese word ‘Sagun’.

100|Tug at the Gillnet Roots, Grow Inwards I hold you You do me I cover you You do me It’s neither you nor me We say WE Yet why these days of Fagun so vacant why so drab why so dry Why isthe fall of leaveson the iron roof at night so jarring I cover your ears You do mine Yet why can’t we help hearing In the courtyard aired on the bamboo bar

Tug at the Gillnet|101 the half-wet gamocha of the bun sways in the wind And its shadow Like the ant that pauses nearing the shadow I’m a half-wit Come on Let’s build a house on land Digging soil let us grope about for the roots of Tree Let us invite the roots to grow fast through our skin our blood our dark innards Come on all for the roots of Tree you and me Let us be WE today Fagun: (or Falgun ) early spring gamocha: traditional handloom towel, a symbol of Assamese culture

102|Tug at the Gillnet Poet Even after my death that unwritten poem will keep scouring me in burnt-out embers Seeking my breath in the mute cracker in the wind trapped in the bamboo culm it will keep waiting with bent fingers In the river at the edge of water being a dragonfly it will sniff at something Taking the pages of poems as mirrors it will try to look into them leaning over Even then it will not sit in the armchair of my tidy house just for once Only like white ants tunnelling in my heart it will make an anthill

Tug at the Gillnet|103 And the rain having stopped with a hope of meeting me my kindred hand it will come out tilting its head looking for the blue veins Maybe many a poem will come and go Even after my death poetry will grope around for my body of flesh and blood In the damp of the woods unnoticed a white flower will fall O the poets of my soul’s pond tell Poetry that unseen flower is none but me

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Tug at the Gillnet|105 Afterword Be are used to thinking of India as a country, though in reality it compares more to a continent. We know of Delhi and Mumbai, perhaps of Varanasi and Dharmashala as well, but India’s map is immensely greater. So is Indian literature, primarily known in Europe by its Sanskrit and Hindi literatures, and to some degree by the Bengali one. Works in other languages are lesser known. And yet India of today comprises twenty-three major languages, and that is excluding the smaller ones and dialects. This book offers a brief insight into contemporary Assamese poetry. Born in 1980, Bijoy Sankar Barman is one of the rising figures of Assamese literature, having received the prize for best young author by Sahitya Akademi, the highest cultural institution of the country. He has published three collections of poems, in addition to translations which include an Assamese rendition of the ancient Tamil poetry “Kuruntokai”. North-Eastern India is a melting pot of different cultures, landscapes and languages. The famed Brahmaputra river runs through this land, it is rich in resources and heritage. A strong bond with heritage and tradition is what characterizes Barman’s poetry as well: its identity comes from its roots. The collection at hand offers references to Vedic mythology, e.g. in poems “Ashokashtami” and “At the Foothills of Panikhaiti”. In the latter, the author juxtaposes the holy forest of Vrindavana, of the Hindu Divine Couple Radha and Krishna, with the oil factory in the contemporary Assamese capital Guwahati. Alongside it, there is play with native folklore, as visible in poems “Spook” or “Wail of the Ripe Leaves”. Barman’s poetry includes an unusual amount of dedicated poems,

106|Tug at the Gillnet addressed mostly to personages of importance in Assamese culture or in author’s personal life – as in the (poem “Streaming Tears of Ketetong”) where he speaks of his first encounter with Angfew Ningkhee, a rare personality who died of cancer a few years later. Items of symbolic importance also get mentioned: a rice paddy, an oil lamp, the holy basil bush (tulsi) and, of course, the woven cloth of gamocha, which is at once a functional item as well as a gift of deep respect and acceptance. The Indian tradition of a funeral pyre also gets a mention in the poem “While Carrying My Grandpa’s Bier”. Barman’s poetry is thus based on the wide foundation of inheritance and yet it addresses the socio-political topics as well, like exploitation of nature or subsistence of the poor. An important role is played by mysticism and the other- worldly, expressed in the created images as well as in the structure of poems wherein the different parts of the text do not necessarily connect to each other on a logical or narrative-like basis, but can hop from one reality to another or place them side by side. Barman has a strong personal connection with Estonia. In 2015, he spent six and a half months in Tartu, studying the gender roles in Estonian mythology at University of Tartu. In the same period, an evening of his poetry was held at Tartu Literature House. MATHURA

Tug at the Gillnet|107 Acknowledgements My sincere gratitude and respect to the eminent translator Nirendra Nath Thakuria, who has been translating my poems into English since 2007. This book would not have been possible without his persistent hard work for last fifteen years. I am so grateful to the legendary poet-scholar Dr. Sitakant Mahapatra for the kind Foreword. I feel blessed! My very special thank goes to my Estonian poet-friend Mathura (Margus Lattik), who already has translated my poems for the Estonian readers. The book entitled Pisarateoja, Ketetong got published from Europe (Estonia: Allikaäärne, 2016). For their trust and encouragement, I would like to thank renowned writer and critic Harekrishna Deka and critic Professor Bibhash Choudhury. Words fall short enough to offer my gratitude to Nilmani Phookan, the great poet-scholar for his affection, inspiration, faith and expectations. With utmost care and concern, Dr. Dhrubajyoti Borah, the well-known writer, keeps illuminating me. I am indebted! One of my poems appeared in Great Indian Poems edited by poet-diplomat Abhay K. and published by Bloomsbury India (New Delhi, 2020). I am grateful to him. I offer my thanks to the Editorial Board of Indian Literature – especially to the Guest Editors Yashodhara Mishra, Subodh Sarkar and A. J. Thomas for publishing some of my poems. My Italian poet-friend Giacomo Caruso translated a few poems which were published from Italy in the magazine Segnali di Confine in August 2016 along with the English versions included in this collection. I am thankful to him. Acknowledgement is due to the Editorial Board of NEZINE, an online magazine; to my friend Subhro Bandopadhyay,

108|Tug at the Gillnet Ravi Korde, Moid Rasheedi, Kshetrabasi Naik, Pargat Singh Satauj, Vishvadhar Deshmukh, Arunabh Saurabh, Leho Rubis, Jaan Malin, Krista Ojasaar, Carolina Pihelgas, and Victor Ortiz Partida for the Mexican Spanish versions of two poems, which appeared in LUVINA; to respected Kureeppuzha Sreekumar, Shafi Shauq, Jayant Parmar, Shefalika Verma, Meethesh Nirmohi, Karuppasamy Samayavel, Nilima Thakuria Haque, Lutfa Hanum Salima Begum and Samudra Gupta Kashyap. I presented a few poems in a lecture entitled Transmitting Lived Lores through Poetry: Perspective of a Native Assamese in the Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore, University of Tartu, Estonia. I would like to thank Professor Ülo Valk, all the enlightened staff and students of the Department, poet Professor Jüri Talvet and all the enthusiastic audience there. I am thankful to the organizers of Karlova Festival in Estonia for inviting me to read poems, and also to the organizers of the event Pisarateoja, Ketetong: kohtumi sõhtu Assami kirjaniku Bijoy Sankar Barmaniga in the Tartu House of Literature, Estonia in 2015. I am thankful to Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi; National Book Trust, New Delhi; All India Radio; Kala Academy Goa; Gateway LitFest Team and Publication Board Assam for inviting me to several programmes. My heartfelt gratitude goes to celebrated writer Ms. Ajeet Cour, President, FOSWAL (apex body of SAARC) for inviting me to read my poems in SAARC Festival of Literature 2013 at Agra and South Asian Literature Festival 2018 at Delhi organized by FOSWAL. Warm and affectionate thanks, as always, to Ripunjoy Sarmah, Jayashree Borah for their comments and observations; to Sanjib Borah for designing the cover; to Nitin Soni, my poet-friend, and Global Publishing House India who has brought this book to light. BIJOY SANKAR BARMAN

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112|Tug at the Gillnet Bijoy Sankar Barman (b. 1980) Assamese poet and translator, Bijoy Sankar Barman already has twenty-two published books on different genres to his credit. Bijoy Sankar Barman was marked by The Indian Express as one of the ‘Best Young Writers’ of India in 2012. Barman received the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar in 2013 for his second collection of poems Ashokastami. Besides the five critically acclaimed collections of poems—Deo (2006), Ashokastami (2011), Barnamukti (2015), Moi Maatir Naabhit Kaan Thoi Xuniso (2020) and Kadam Phulbor Doivokeer Navam Santaan (2025), his other published books include Pisarateoja, Ketetong (2016), a collection of his poems in Estonian translated by Mathura; Kurundoheir Kabita (2014), the translation of the ancient Tamil classic Kuruntokai; Amar Angulgulir Ongkurodgam (2019), a collection of his poems in Bengali translated by Sanjay Chakraborty. Barman’s poems have been translated into English and major regional languages in India, and into foreign languages like Italian, French, Spanish, Chinese, Estonian, Mexican Spanish, etc. A post-graduate in both English Literature and Sociology, Bijoy Sankar Barman is a Doctorate on gender perspectives in the tribal mythology of Assam. He also studied in the Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore, the University of Tartu, Estonia, as visiting Doctoral Student.

Tug at the Gillnet|113 Nirendra Nath Thakuria (b. 1960) Nirendra Nath Thakuria translates Assamese literature into English, and his translations of Assamese poems have appeared in many reputed literary journals like Kavya Bharati, Chandrabhaga, Indian Literature, Yaatra in India and in international journals/magazines like International Writers’ Journal (USA), The Poet (UK), Azahar (Spain), and so forth. His literary contributions have been included in The Oxford Anthology Writings From North East India – Poetry and Essays, OUP; and Dancing Earth, An Anthology of Poetry from North-East India, Penguin Books. Thakuria has, to his credit, five collections of English translations – Seven Days (selected poems of Sameer Tanti), Tug At The Gillnet (selected poems of Bijoy Sankar Barman), Sprout Leaves Quicken (selected poems of Anis Uz Zaman), Selected Poems of Nilmani Phookan in Translation (in collaboration with Binod Gogoi, who contributed the Spanish translations), and What were we talking about (selected poems of Nilmani Phookan). Thakuria’s renderings of Dr. Bhupen Hazarika’s fifty-two popular Assamese songs into English have been included in two anthologies. In 2020, Thakuria retired as Associate Professor of English from Pragjyotish College, Guwahati, (Assam).

114|Tug at the Gillnet Praise for Bijoy Sankar Barman His metaphors and images are both of the community and the self simultaneously. His intellect corroborates his emotional involvement. It is a tremendous achievement that shuns pyrotechnics and yet has a telling intellectual sincerity. Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar 2013 Bijoy Sankar Barman’s poetry evokes reality and explores the strength of language. His birthplace, Rupiabathan, in lower Assam, is a metaphor for roots and his skillful use of words from the local dialect makes his poetry very evocative and pregnant with meaning. Social consciousness mixes with personal feelings in many of his poems, and through the uncertainty of life in Assam, he looks for signs of hope in the everyday. Harekrishna Deka ‘Best Young Writers’, The Indian Express, July 29, 2012 ... There is a crisis in contemporary Assamese society, not quite identifiable or localizable in one specific centre, but rather an angst-ridden consciousness of the surrounding world, that forms part of the literary vision in texts that span across multiple genres. In the poetry of Bijoy Sankar Barman, for instance, the response forays a double- pronged look at reality, one drawing on the cultural repository that is sometimes overtly localized for identification and effect, the other marking a mythic orientation which showcases the tradition-modernity

Tug at the Gillnet|115 interface by referring to a creative take on the state of things. Such moves bear evidence of a socially-oriented writing culture whose responsive character is marked by stylistic innovations that seek to consolidate a modernity that is distinctly Assamese. Bibhash Choudhury ‘Assamese Literature’, Muse India, Issue 63. Sep-Oct, 2015