Blue throated barbet is a colourful bird, just about bordering gaudy with all those green, blue, red, black, brown, yellow, orange...quite a collage. First impression is startling then you say “ok bird that really is overdone!!” Found in the foothills of Himalayas right from Assam to Burma even plains of lower Bengal. They prefer open hills than thick jungles and are confiding seen quite frequently around human habitation. Like other barbets this one too is purely arboreal and has incessant throaty call. Spotted this one on the hills of Assam on a morning walk.At Guwahati
My connection and awareness of Assam is rather sketchy, though i spend my early part of childhood here i just recall stories of encounters with wild elephants, trekking and some recollection of floods in grainy pictures of family album. I must have been about two when i shifted to Bengal (in first two years of my life i had already stayed four places..
.Kollam, Cochin, Tezpur, Siligri. I like that, just the beginning i wanted!!). I have travelled to Assam few times in last few years, and in some of the worse times. Assam has a very nasty recent past, till two years back bomb blasts were quite frequent (by Bodo tribes for separate state…yesterday also there has been a massacre, mostly of hindi speaking people), and when you get down at Guwahati railway station you see lots of security personnel even now that is disconcerting. I have seen some Assamese movies and read few things here and there. So after my visit to the state museum (must add despite the fact that Assam has been overshadowed by Bengal in last century or so they do have a distinct history and proud culture) and decided to visit the public library next door. Two middle aged men looked at me “geez where does this fellow come from” and then stared each other to check who will condescend to my request, one fellow looked up other fellow looked down, it went on for few minutes then one of the two gave in and got up with much reluctance, searched for English translation of assamese poems. After initial misgivings he turned out to be quite a helpful man and did try his best, so much so i had to tell him ‘you tell me where to search i do the rest’, he agreed immediately and i regretted it. I just could locate one book by Hari Barkakati. I liked these lines
The evening lay stretched like a table
where the sky lay
pinned down on the earth
by the silvery pylons.
The egrets went flying
haphazardly,
like letters written to
an absent minded god
I am also posting pictures (at photo blog) of a culture program i happen to witness very near to where i was staying
Navakanta Barua: the gentle poet
I am a poet, my shelter made of only words
Words only form my bridge
through the incisive bridge of words I have crossed
the dark caves of disbelief
What is the use of calling the word as The Brahma
thinking of it as The God Incarnate
When men wants to protect its dignity
With men’s blood?
Navakanta Barua (1926-2002) was one of the colossal figures in Assamese literature, he inspired generations of young poe
ts. His poems are popular for its lyrical flow of the verses, in its simple and pleasantness that comes from awareness of the society. Deeply influenced by Buddha and Tagore, Navakanta Barua-the humanist poet- remains an endearing figure to not only to all sections of assamiya society but also across societies. Writes Bhupen Hazarika “Navakanta and I shared the same passion for music. He gave me the words, I set them to tune. Because for both of us, poetry and song were two beautiful birds playing in the same courtyard. Navakanta had summed the similarity profoundly. ‘Every song is a poem,’ he used to tell me”.
Navakanta Barua received innumerable awards, including the Sahitya Akademi Award, for his novel Kakadeutar Har in 1975, the Soviet Land Nehru Award in 1980 and Padmabhusan in 1976. He has a number of poetry collections to his credit, prominent among them being He Aranya, He Mahanagar (1951), Jyoti Aru Keitaman Sketch (1960), Samrat (1962), Mor Aru Prithivir (1973). Navakanta Barua’s latest collection of poems is called Dalangat Tamighora (2000). His novels include Kapilipariya Sadhu (1953), Kakadeutar Har (1973), Garama Kunwari (1980), Manuh Ataibor Dweep (1980), Apadartha (1981) and Patachara. He wrote eight books for children, including Akharar Jhakhala (1958), Shiyalee Palegoi Ratanpur (1956), Hat Ukare Hu (1960), Kishore Ramayan (1987), Kishore Upanishad and Umala Gharar Puthi.
The Navakanta Barua Foundation organises programs every year where children are encouraged to paint, dance, sing and recite poems.
I got these poems from the book Three Score Assamese Poems (DN Bezboruah) as also from the Net ...
God Gave Gray Cells (translated by Pradip Acharya)
God gave man brains
To achieve lunacy therewith.
With his body replenished with blood
The heart took on the task of mistrust.
Speech he had
Wherewith cunningly to obscure truth.
The only truth left to Man
Is the work-moist hands of his own woman
Clasped in his weary hands of an evening
And the smile of this his child.
Measurements
It is afternoon now.
Let’s go to the tailor’s; to get measured.
Measurements of neck chest hands and arms
Measurements of the palm and the heart
We shall give measurements of the entrails
And the kidney and the liver,
Give measurements of hormones and affections
Let us give measurements of life,
Of this that and several things.
Give only the measurements.
We shall think of the stitching later on.
For the time being let’s just give the measurements
We can only give measurements.
We can only take reckonings
We shall record that suicides have
Swelled considerably.
We shall give count of the number
Of letters in a speech.
Give count of the Christians in Arabia.
Just give measurements.
We shall think of the stitching later on.
Merely think.
Someone after us will measure anew
Saying that our measurements have gone awry.
Fresh new measurements they’ll take.
Just take measurements.
When will someone stitch the garment to fit man?
From the poem The First Code of Life
Ye my people, the incarnations of the Great Ashoka,
With your tears of repentance
Have your hands washed of
The stains of your brother’s blood.
Purify yourselves, Not with the spoilt incarnations
But with the stable unity of
Thought, Love and Sweat.
Ye Ashoka the Terrible, transform yourself
To Ashoka the Just.
These lines from the poem “The Lift”
Just in this way
through the hissing of a mechanical serpent
we descend.
A descent where there is no movement
And where motion begins in the stopping.
In this way, in this way.
Above us the veranda of an ailing heaven
Below, the crumbling pavement of livelihood;
In between, a huge formless if.
In this way
In this way we descend
Palestine
We housed them in prisons
For they wanted a home,
We killed them for they wanted eternal life
Then bulldozed their prisons into fields of corn
What’s that hand sticking out from the earth?
Other hands will sprout from it ...
And tickle us to death.
Two scribbles...
Blue Planet (towards Cancun)
Earth is molested
The crime is committed
Now is the time to punish the culprits
No maybes, ifs and buts
The evidence is all there to see
There is a fury that is shaking the earth
See the trembles of despair
Tell me what will you do if your child is molested, mutilated
and left to die?
Surely not argue on medical expense
Rain
So calm was the rain today
I didn’t notice the first instance
Carpet of tiny beads
swaying to its own will
landing on my palm
A rhythm primal yet near
about my heartbeats
My connection and awareness of Assam is rather sketchy, though i spend my early part of childhood here i just recall stories of encounters with wild elephants, trekking and some recollection of floods in grainy pictures of family album. I must have been about two when i shifted to Bengal (in first two years of my life i had already stayed four places..
.Kollam, Cochin, Tezpur, Siligri. I like that, just the beginning i wanted!!). I have travelled to Assam few times in last few years, and in some of the worse times. Assam has a very nasty recent past, till two years back bomb blasts were quite frequent (by Bodo tribes for separate state…yesterday also there has been a massacre, mostly of hindi speaking people), and when you get down at Guwahati railway station you see lots of security personnel even now that is disconcerting. I have seen some Assamese movies and read few things here and there. So after my visit to the state museum (must add despite the fact that Assam has been overshadowed by Bengal in last century or so they do have a distinct history and proud culture) and decided to visit the public library next door. Two middle aged men looked at me “geez where does this fellow come from” and then stared each other to check who will condescend to my request, one fellow looked up other fellow looked down, it went on for few minutes then one of the two gave in and got up with much reluctance, searched for English translation of assamese poems. After initial misgivings he turned out to be quite a helpful man and did try his best, so much so i had to tell him ‘you tell me where to search i do the rest’, he agreed immediately and i regretted it. I just could locate one book by Hari Barkakati. I liked these linesThe evening lay stretched like a table
where the sky lay
pinned down on the earth
by the silvery pylons.
The egrets went flying
haphazardly,
like letters written to
an absent minded god
I am also posting pictures (at photo blog) of a culture program i happen to witness very near to where i was staying
Navakanta Barua: the gentle poet
I am a poet, my shelter made of only words
Words only form my bridge
through the incisive bridge of words I have crossed
the dark caves of disbelief
What is the use of calling the word as The Brahma
thinking of it as The God Incarnate
When men wants to protect its dignity
With men’s blood?
Navakanta Barua (1926-2002) was one of the colossal figures in Assamese literature, he inspired generations of young poe
ts. His poems are popular for its lyrical flow of the verses, in its simple and pleasantness that comes from awareness of the society. Deeply influenced by Buddha and Tagore, Navakanta Barua-the humanist poet- remains an endearing figure to not only to all sections of assamiya society but also across societies. Writes Bhupen Hazarika “Navakanta and I shared the same passion for music. He gave me the words, I set them to tune. Because for both of us, poetry and song were two beautiful birds playing in the same courtyard. Navakanta had summed the similarity profoundly. ‘Every song is a poem,’ he used to tell me”. Navakanta Barua received innumerable awards, including the Sahitya Akademi Award, for his novel Kakadeutar Har in 1975, the Soviet Land Nehru Award in 1980 and Padmabhusan in 1976. He has a number of poetry collections to his credit, prominent among them being He Aranya, He Mahanagar (1951), Jyoti Aru Keitaman Sketch (1960), Samrat (1962), Mor Aru Prithivir (1973). Navakanta Barua’s latest collection of poems is called Dalangat Tamighora (2000). His novels include Kapilipariya Sadhu (1953), Kakadeutar Har (1973), Garama Kunwari (1980), Manuh Ataibor Dweep (1980), Apadartha (1981) and Patachara. He wrote eight books for children, including Akharar Jhakhala (1958), Shiyalee Palegoi Ratanpur (1956), Hat Ukare Hu (1960), Kishore Ramayan (1987), Kishore Upanishad and Umala Gharar Puthi.
The Navakanta Barua Foundation organises programs every year where children are encouraged to paint, dance, sing and recite poems.
I got these poems from the book Three Score Assamese Poems (DN Bezboruah) as also from the Net ...
God Gave Gray Cells (translated by Pradip Acharya)
God gave man brains
To achieve lunacy therewith.
With his body replenished with blood
The heart took on the task of mistrust.
Speech he had
Wherewith cunningly to obscure truth.
The only truth left to Man
Is the work-moist hands of his own woman
Clasped in his weary hands of an evening
And the smile of this his child.
Measurements
It is afternoon now.
Let’s go to the tailor’s; to get measured.
Measurements of neck chest hands and arms
Measurements of the palm and the heart
We shall give measurements of the entrails
And the kidney and the liver,
Give measurements of hormones and affections
Let us give measurements of life,
Of this that and several things.
Give only the measurements.
We shall think of the stitching later on.
For the time being let’s just give the measurements
We can only give measurements.
We can only take reckonings
We shall record that suicides have
Swelled considerably.
We shall give count of the number
Of letters in a speech.
Give count of the Christians in Arabia.
Just give measurements.
We shall think of the stitching later on.
Merely think.
Someone after us will measure anew
Saying that our measurements have gone awry.
Fresh new measurements they’ll take.
Just take measurements.
When will someone stitch the garment to fit man?
From the poem The First Code of Life
Ye my people, the incarnations of the Great Ashoka,
With your tears of repentance
Have your hands washed of
The stains of your brother’s blood.
Purify yourselves, Not with the spoilt incarnations
But with the stable unity of
Thought, Love and Sweat.
Ye Ashoka the Terrible, transform yourself
To Ashoka the Just.
These lines from the poem “The Lift”
Just in this way
through the hissing of a mechanical serpent
we descend.
A descent where there is no movement
And where motion begins in the stopping.
In this way, in this way.
Above us the veranda of an ailing heaven
Below, the crumbling pavement of livelihood;
In between, a huge formless if.
In this way
In this way we descend
Palestine
We housed them in prisons
For they wanted a home,
We killed them for they wanted eternal life
Then bulldozed their prisons into fields of corn
What’s that hand sticking out from the earth?
Other hands will sprout from it ...
And tickle us to death.
Two scribbles...
Blue Planet (towards Cancun)
Earth is molested
The crime is committed
Now is the time to punish the culprits
No maybes, ifs and buts
The evidence is all there to see
There is a fury that is shaking the earth
See the trembles of despair
Tell me what will you do if your child is molested, mutilated
and left to die?
Surely not argue on medical expense
Rain
So calm was the rain today
I didn’t notice the first instance
Carpet of tiny beads
swaying to its own will
landing on my palm
A rhythm primal yet near
about my heartbeats
