SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY

A ballad on estrangement

You’re not easily available ,for me very tough to meet you

On the Nilgiri mountain, Kurinji flowers blooming

in autumn, every twelve years gap,

you resemble the very identical species

You’ve bloomed once again during this season, all over the valley

those suffering from leprosy, assemble there and believe that

they’ll be cured if they paste grinding petals of 

a rare species like you, on their wounds

all their old maladies’ll be gone for good.

Following the equator, I’ve also come here

we are belonging to the same planet, but rarely meeting each other

I’ll climb to search you, using the worn-out staircase through mist

will lie down tiringly on the notch of a stone, you just cast off upon

my body, open your petals from head to the fingers of your two legs

let the storm dash out, if you put your lips on my lips

You’re the sanatorium to me, the secret panacea

An Egyptian folk tale

Don’t throw stones at a fellow who truly loves you

those stones’ll come back to you someday or other

It is an Egyptian folk tale, the written version in the proverb

but you didn’t obey it, rather as a first lover

you ditched him, leaving him alone 

putting chewing gum casually in your mouth

at 8 o’clock past 10 in the morning,

you are crossing the quiet desert,

no mirage is visible, only broken skeletons

of camels lie scattered here and there

sometimes after the sun will look like a ruthless hammer

after pulling out from your rucksack the last bottle of soft drinks

you being exhausted, will roll on the ground senseless

sense when regained, you listen to the wind of the storm :

It’s the curse of the God of sands and deserts :

Throughout your life you all alone will go on searching water

you will earn money, enjoy solvency, but never you will get a beloved.

Bio:

Shaswata Gangopadhyay :

One of the Prominent faces of Contemporary Bengali Poetry ,who started writing in Mid 90s.

Shaswata’s poems have been published in all major Bengali Poetry journals.Shaswata has participated in different International poetry festivals of Europe and Both North and Latin America.

His poems have beenpublished in all six continents in more than 150 International Journals and Anthologies through translations in 7-8 languages.

His book of Poems : Inhabitant of Pluto Planet (2001),Offspring of Monster (2009), Holes of Red Crabs(2015), In the city of myth and mushroom (2023)and Poems of Shaswata Gangopadhyay (2023).

He has also been invited to read his poems in UK, USA, France, Australia, South Africa, Colombia and Portugal Virtual Book Fair.

He has been invited to Paris, Vienna and Frankfurt to read his poems.

Very recently he has received ‘Sparkling Soul Award’ from Chile, Latin America.

This year, He was invited to Prestigious ‘ Gateway Lit Fest’ at Mumbai to read his poems.