Original work: Smt Banaja Devi
Translator: Uday Kanungo [Guest contributor]
KAJALAPATI
Your black-beautied body grips the champa boughs
And sometimes, perched alone, you gaze, so entranced and spellbound;
You sit hidden amid a tangle of leaves, akin to a flower
Which the sky, extending a curling fist, seeks as if to pluck.
Original author: Sunil Gangopadhyay
Translated by: DM
Allen Ginsberg informed me that he did not have permanent living quarters, I would have to go and look for him at a specific bookshop in Greenwich Village. I did not know any Bengalis in New York City, and expecting hospitality at someone else’s house was out of the question. Thus I landed up, bag and baggage, at a cheap hotel in the Village—rather like the ones we have near Sealdah station, quite filthy, a tiny room with a bed and a wardrobe. The tariff was $12—about sixty rupees.
Original post: Smt. Banaja Debi
Translator: Uday Kanungo [Guest contributor]
[Translated from Odiya]
There wasn’t a single tree in sight nearby. There wasn’t in view a patch of green earth, not the faintest bit of greenery. Anywhere you laid your eyes, there were only dense bundles of houses made of cement and brick, before you and behind, to your left and right. Houses on both sides of the road, houses closely stacked one by one and lined up, mostly amongst them actually being shop-cabins. And hence, forever populated, with the noise of daily business and an atmosphere of cacophony. The sufficient width of the road was rendered useless, what with the bustling crowd and many vehicles coming and going leaving only the narrowest of spaces left. Why, of all places, did his son rent a house amidst such a swarming bazaar, was beyond Navghan.
Original story: Leela Majumdar
Translator: DM
I came to know Poto-didi towards the end of her life: dark complexioned, portly, garrulous. But with her sharp patrician features, and her keen eagle-eyed gaze, it was evident that she had been a beautiful woman once. As a person she was independent and self-sufficient. Whatever property and money she had inherited from her father at the time of her wedding had been squandered away in fits of generosity. The last few years of her life were nevertheless spent in great contentment.
Original story: Sukumar Ray
Translated by: BS
Once upon a time, there lived two friends. One was blind, the other was deaf.
One fine day, they got to know that a jatra with dancing clowns was to be held nearby. The deaf one read this in a newspaper, and the blind one heard about it from other people.
Original story: Sukumar Ray
Translated by: BS
“Look Tepi, this is how you launch a rocket cracker. Why on earth did you want Raju mama to assist us with this? Are other people not capable of playing with crackers responsibly? See!”
Dada was about ten years old, Tepi only eight, and the other siblings even younger. Therefore, dada was always showing off his . Tepi was actually a little scared of dada launching the rocket crackers by himself—what if he flew away with the rocket? What if he got badly burnt? What if some other equally horrible thing happened? Well, dada’s supreme confidence at least assuaged some of Tepi’s concerns.
Original story: Kalyani Dutta
Translated by: DM
This one was contributed by, Kamala Roy of Rajshahi, now a resident of Boranogor:
I could tell you many a tale about the miseries of Hindu widows, but the one I am going to tell you today was related to me by my mother. In the year 1300 (Bengali calendar), before my mother was nine years of age, she was married off. On the same day, at the same auspicious moment, my mother’s aunt (pishi) was married as well. This aunt was an only child, and very close to my mother. Within six months, she was widowed.
Original story: Kalyani Dutta
Translated by: DM
This one was narrated to me by Sumita Mitra, a lecturer at Basanti Devi College:
Original story: Kalyani Datta
Translated by: DM
The following incident was narrated to me by Mrs. Sucharita Roy, a lecturer at Basanti Devi College. Mrs Roy’s grandmother Uttamasundari Devi told her daughter Surobala Devi this wonderfully poignant story of her widowed sister-in-law eating fish:
Original Work: Rabindranath Tagore
Translated by: DM
In the ledger of virtues and vices which determine the course of our afterlives, some sins are noted down in capital letters which even the reprobates themselves are unaware of. Similarly, there are some acts which the world does not deem to be sinful, but only we—the sinners—are aware of their true nature. The episode I wish to recount here belongs to this second category. Perhaps on the day of the final judgement the blame will be mitigated somewhat if I confess now.
The incident happened last Saturday. The Marwari Jains in our neighbourhood were celebrating some religious festival. I was out in, with my wife Kalika, in our car—we were headed to our friend Nayanmohan’s for a tea party.
onubaad 