Sunil Gangopadhyay in translation: What his death robbed literature of

by Arunava Sinha

S_unil Gangopadhyay (1934 - 2012) died in his sleep of a heart attack in the early hours of October 23. The tallest contemporary writer in the Bengali language, he was one of India’s literary giants. His voluminous work spanned poetry, novels, short stories, essays and children’d fiction, but he always referred to himself as a poet, first and foremost._

Gangopadhyay wrote an iconic series of poems around an imagined woman named Nira, with the collective title Hothat Nirar Jonno (For Nira, Suddenly). Here is an unpublished translation of a poem from this series. 

For Nira, Suddenly

Three minutes at the bus-stop, yet for hours in my dream last night I saw you embedded like a knife across the ocean – compass-less – One body like the fifty-two holy places, in the wind I saw you last night in my dream, Nira, in the dire blue times Of dreams that ripen once and die.

When did you visit the southern sea-door, with whom? Have you only just returned? How terrible, how silent the ocean was in the dream, without a wave, As though it would kill itself three days later, your horizon in the distance Like a lost ring, your knees immersed in the blue water Suddenly you seemed to be a gambler’s moll And yet you were alone, alone in the intense dream.

I shan’t sleep for a year, wiping the sweat off the brow At dawn after a dream seems so very foolish I prefer forgetfulness, as free of shame as The naked body hidden in clothes, I Shan’t sleep for a year, for a year I’ll be awake, dreamless And roam your body, like the fifty-two holy places, To earn my piety.

Your smiling face in the bus window, ‘I have to go, Come home sometime.’ The shriek of the sunlight drowns all sounds. ‘Stay a little longer,’ or ‘Let’s go to the library garden.’ Someone In my heart said these things, glancing at my watch with Remembering eyes I jump up, leapfrogging over the road, buses, trams, Carts and people Loping on all four limbs like an orang-utan I reach the door to the office lift.

Three minutes at the bus-stop, yet for hours in my dream last night.

(Translated by Arunava Sinha)