At times...

[subhinay]

All sorrows are not sacred, all dreams are not for telling others, all roads do not lead to Rome, all love is not for women, not every white sheet of paper wants to be sullied, all windows cannot be opened, not all poets are treacherous.

Sunil Gangopadhyay

Translated from Bengali by Arunava Sinha

[subhinay]

The Shadow by Manik Bandyopadhyay

I almost went mad after the death of my first wife. I didn’t eat on time, didn’t leave my corner of the room, read books on ghosts and spirits all the time, and pondered in silence. I loved my wife so much that even after conducting her last rites at the crematorium, I did not believe that she had indeed been converted to vapour and ashes, that she was nowhere in this world anymore. I was convinced that she would return, that I would see her again. Just in case she proved hesitant about returning in the presence of other people, I sent the rest of my family home. I had no concern for earthly pleasures. I engaged a maid and a cook, accepting all their arrangements. I became so irritated and angry when they came to me for instructions that they avoided me out of fear. Gathering four or five large photographs of my wife in a room, along with her clothes, her cosmetics, her embroidered slippers, the notebook she used to keep accounts, and a thousand other mementos, I spent all my daylight hours in there. In the evenings I moved to the room in which my wife had died, changing the sheets of the bed on which she had breathed her last, and placing two pillows side by side. I passed the nights in wakefulness, by turn sitting, lying down, reading, and casting expectant glances around me. Having spent a month or so in this way without even a momentary glimpse of my wife, I was beginning to grow despondent - when it struck me one evening that perhaps she was not visiting me because I kept the lights turned on. As soon as the thought occurred to me, I switched off the lights. I had goosepimples of delight. As soon as I turned out the lights, I saw my wife sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, in the form of a shadow. Her incorporeal body emitted an aura which lit up a rectangular area around her, like a photo frame. The same loosely piled up hair, the same peak at the forehead, the same sharp nose and shapely chin. Even the end of her sari, which had slipped off her head to encircle her neck, was clearly visible. I stood stock still, gazing at her. A long time later she rose to her feet, raising her arms and yawning in the way I knew so well. Now the silhouette of her body was even clearer. She stood there for another minute or so before moving a yard or two sideways and melting into the faint darkness in the room. Only the glowing rectangular frame around her remained undistorted. My legs wavering, I walked up to the bed and slumped on it, falling asleep at once. My indisposed body and spirit could not endure the exhilaration of her miraculous appearance. I began to see her every day after this. I would wait in the room before evening fell. As the darkness deepened, the dazzling rectangle would appear on the wall like a backdrop. On some days she would sit close to the wall as before, while on others she would move about restlessly. Now and then she would turn her back to me, arrange her hair in a bun on her head, and enact my favourite pose from the time she was alive. Sometimes she would even go through the motions of conversing with me, waving her hands, but soundlessly. How could she produce a sound? On my part, I did not attempt to talk to her or to go up to her and touch her. I was aware that it is impossible to talk to a shadow or to touch it. I would only gaze at her. That was enough to lighten the pain of being parted from her. Only, I would suffer greatly when she appeared indistinct and distorted. I could make out that she was trying to assume the shadowy form, but without success. Who could tell how much agony this caused her? We had an unusual consummation one day. Although she could not break through the insurmountable barrier between material and spirit, I was able to do it with the help of my strong willpower. That day I had read up, in an English book on the afterlife, the methods by which a living being can acquire the form of a spirit. As soon as she appeared against the illuminated backdrop that night, I saw my shadow embrace her from the back. In an instant I forgot the infinite gulf with my departed wife. In my intimate embrace her limp, unmoving body grew as warm and pulsating with the emotions of living as before. I had no doubt whatsoever that it was her flesh and blood body which I had clasped to my breast. I felt the touch of her hair and of her skin, her warm breath falling on my cheek. I even felt the weight of her body. Can a shadow have weight? I do not remember what happened after this. I had grown used to my wife’s shadowy presence, but being able to touch her in flesh-and-blood form made me lose consciousness. The possibility of killing myself to join my wife had been on my mind since the day of her death. After this incident I was not inclined to remain on earth a single day longer. The next day I bought two portions of opium. I decided that, once my wife had appeared that evening, I would consume the opium and lie down in her presence. Before night could turn into morning, the difference between our respective existences on the planes of life and death would vanish. That evening her shadow appeared even more clear and flawless. Whatever little apprehension I had had about suicide disappeared after seeing her. I shut the door, and, at once, not just my wife’s shadow but also the halo of light around her vanished. I had never seen the glowing backdrop vanish along with her. I could not understand. I opened the door again. The light and my wife’s shadow both took form once more on the wall. I looked out and discovered the maid sitting outside the door, waiting for someone. The light at the turn of the stairs was casting its beams directly into my room. I’m told I went insane for a year or so after this. I am not at all mad now, and I have remarried. But what is surprising is that I still believe in ghosts and spirits. - Translated from Bengali by Arunava Sinha

[subhinay]

Just a girl, nothing more, facing the mirror, doing her hair why are men charmed by this, do the girls even know? for even men comb their hair, shave and shower, swim and play must all this be only prose, will girls never know what it means?

Sunil Gangopadhyay, Neglected by Poetry

Translated from Bengali by Arunava Sinha

[subhinay]

Because I have come to love you I fear being just a drop of dew For a taste of water in your arms I want to meld into you As the body melds with the soul

- Jibananda Das Translated from Bengali by Arunava Sinha

[subhinay]

Humans are hunters by nature. Once upon a time, societies developed around the activity is hunting animals. Many years have passed since then. Wild beasts are all but extinct; animals are nite bred for food. But still our fingers itch all the time. Humans hunt down other humans now. Even the civilized inhabitants of palaces hunt one another. This group was the other side of the same coin. All the road hereabouts were divided up between gangs. No two gangs could take the same road simultaneously. Such was the law of jungle, too.

Wistful and far away by Sunil Gangopadhyay Translated from Bengali by Arunava Sinha

[subhinay]

Draft features essays by grammarians, historians, linguists, journalists, novelists and others on the art of writing — from the comma to the tweet to the novel — and why a well-crafted sentence matters more than ever in the digital age.

[subhinay]

The light makes the dark rum a happy orange. Failed love would make us kill, failed luck would make us kill, failed justice would make us kill. Anger would make us kill, envy would make us kill, idealism would make us kill, sorrow would make us kill. But we are saved by a song. We sing and we hear song, and we understand and we forgive, and our great unhappiness slowly drains out of us, like pus from a boil, and we sheathe our knives and bury our axes, and we are saved.

The Valley Of Masks by Tarun Tejpal

[subhinay]

A cacophony of real and imagined lovers filled my head. They were screaming, shouting, accusing me of treachery and betrayal, infidelity and disloyalty, India and Sheela, Rani and Adit, Vidur, Chakra Dev, my mother, Mrs. Pillai, and Deepak all grievously claimed injury and showed me the damage I had done. Love in my dream was not a many-shaped thing but a single blinding light. Everyone bathed in it together, without distinctions, all balanced precariously on the edge of an abyss. The compartments in my brain were erased, compassion and maternal affection paraded naked with desire, lust conjoined with admiration.

Baby Ji by Abha Dawesar

[subhinay]

In the world of zero and one, self-immolation was a simple act. Fire, a purifier. Violence, an unrefined response to the complex machinery inside the head that manufactured a thousand kinds of sordid poison — each corrupting and vilifying, dislocating, blaspheming, decapitating, and corroding the universe of feeling that arose in the human breast.

Baby Ji by Abha Dawesar

[subhinay]

Two can play silence. Silence for two players. The time it takes to play silence. We seize the silence together, own it separately. You plant a silent minefield, I walk on it, flashes of meaning exploding in my head

Mani Rao