Now I am

Poet, Shamsur Rahaman, is one of my dearest poets of post-Tagore era. He is one of the most revered poets, not only in his own country, Bangladesh, but in every corner of the world, for his rich poetic creations saturated with righteousness, boldness and passion. His contributions to Bengali literature have brought a new dimension to the style and structure of Bengali poems and touched almost every aspect of human emotions.
Here is one of my favourite poem of Shamsur Rahaman, "Ekhon Ami", that I have attempted to transliterate.


I get startled, now and then,

Hearing someone’s going to somewhere,

In transience of a moment

The pool of my soul splashes,

“Going to where and why?”

Leaving numerous questions,

Like this or that, tremble upon

The lines over my lips and iris.



Hands sheath into the veil of

Those clouds, sodden in sorrows,

If ever I offer it to anyone;

The deepest core of my heart

Fervidly quivers, now and then;

I am easily startled now

Hearing someone’s going to somewhere.



My heart breaks, very often,

Seeing something is broken somewhere,

Am scared to see the little sapling

Of rose losing the sparkle;

The boyhood scene of a free kite,

Falling and floating, in a noontide sky,

Often reappears in my eyes now;

Quite a few dead horses,

In the realms of my childhood

Are lying dispersed over the grassland;

These thoughts infuse me

With a terrible fright, nowadays.

Fine I remain, sometimes,

In a dimly lighted corner of my room,

Absorbed between the leaves of the book;

Amidst the rustles of fallen leaves

It brings a solemn news of growing age,

When some elders disappears

Just like the setting of the sun,

I spend the draining time playing hopscotch

With my mind in sheer darkness.



Sadness just keeps on shedding

Long shadows of sorrows—

Upon the lines of the face;

It pours loneliness into my soul,

Forlorn I am, so often, nowadays,

Feel so lonely, so often, nowadays.