“All the world is made of poetry”: Things That Happened and Other Poems by Bhaskar Chakrabarti

Each of us is a bird of disbelief
Flapping our wings beneath the tired water
We shall be born, we shall be born, a new life
Tomorrow or the day after—maybe even this evening

—“The Window”

An important voice in the rise of modern Bengali poetry, Bhaskar Chakrabarti was so intimately bound to the streets, alleys, and rooms of Baranagar in northern Calcutta that he was, until recently, little known beyond West Bengal. Born in 1945, his life spanned an era of tremendous turmoil and change in India and in his native state, yet his poetry touches universals of experience that transcend time and place. To spend time with his verse is to feel that one is in the company of the man himself, in the urban spaces he inhabited.

Things That Happen and Other Poems is the first cross-career selection of his poetry to be published in English. Translated by Arunava Sinha and published by Seagull Books, this volume offers the world an opportunity to become acquainted with this profound, melancholic poet. The recent inclusion of this title on the poetry longlist of the 2018 Best Translated Book Award will hopefully draw even more to discover his work.

Chakrabarti came to prominence in the late 1960s and 70s. It must have been, for him, a time of creative energy and excitement, as his nostalgia for these years, for lost friends and loves, resurfaces frequently in his later poems. However, it was also a period of political and economic upheaval. His earlier poetry often expresses a dramatic, angst-ridden intensity:

Night after night, for countless years, I’ve wanted to slice myself
open for self-examination
I have swallowed alcohol with ashes in it
I have gone up to fallen women to tell them, ‘I love you.’
Not all of this was a game.
My blood and sweat are mingled with black and white days,
brothers mine
I have forgotten nothing, none of it
The blows and the humiliation and the tears
Look—it’s so late tonight as well—still I cannot sleep.

—from “Brothers Mine (1/107)”

In his later poems a certain concern about the state of the world continue to re-emerge, in the form of anxieties about the what he observes in his community, and on the planet. His verse tackles the transformations of modern life, ventures into outer space, and frets within the confines of his room. But in general, as he struggles with his health following a cancer diagnosis, death becomes an ever more present companion, one he seems to entertain as much as he wishes it away and admonishes his audience to live well.

Cut off this thing that has bothered you all your life.

You are alive because of one simple reason, that you’re inhaling and exhaling. Keep this task up.

—from “Come, Let’s Talk of Some Things”

Along with this sense of mortality, a deep, abiding loneliness settles into his words, trails his footsteps, becomes the heart of his careworn song. The predominant mood of these poems is quiet, sad.

The one thing that is clearly evident  in all of Chakrabarti’s poetry is that he was a poet through to the very core of his being. It is the essence of his life’s work, all he ever wanted to do and he talks about his art with eloquence and passion. As he declares in the essay that opens this collection:

All the world is made of poetry. On some days the doors and windows within are flung open. All that I see and hear, all that I get a sudden smell of, turns to something new in a moment. My body feels light. I have had glimpses of the astonishing world of poetry, and I have been astounded every time. So many wilting conversations, fragrances, glances and dreams are happily tacked up on its walls.

How wonderful! He goes on to admit that his love of poetry never abandoned him, even if it did interfere with his ability to worry too much about employment or a steady job, likely to the dismay of some of those around him. And although he came of age in a time of upheaval, he is content to be a poet of the small, the simple, and the everyday. “I am a poetryist.” he writes, “I love ordinariness. Rejected, pedestrian conversations and scenes, days and nights left behind are all things that move me.”

True to this poetic spirit, many of his poems address the act of writing. He writes into silence and frustration with persistence:

I stay here in Baranagar, in Calcutta
Everyone here wants their fortune read
They want to know what life holds for them
They want to know when they’ll come into money

And I, an ancient ghost
Keep struggling with imagery, symbol and resonance
To hell with day before yesterday’s poems
All women with large breasts are better than them

Conjuring up thoughts about Panskura is better
Even writing four or five ordinary lines
About tender blades of grass is better

—from “Panskura”

Chakrabarti’s poetry is, on first encounter, simple. Calm, measured, pensive. His work is personal, mentioning places, addressing people directly, while speaking to emotions—attraction, loss, and loneliness—in tones that are intimate and human. But his poems invite the reader to fall into them, again and again. To read the verses aloud. And here is the junction where the magic of the translation comes into play. Without knowing the original language, vision and meaning must be trusted, but in listening to Chakrabarti reading from his work in Bengali, the cadences of his speech are clearly echoed in the way this poetry sounds and feels in the English.

And that is a remarkable achievement, and an endorsement for this evocative collection, this celebration of Calcutta in its uniqueness and its universality.

Author: roughghosts

Literary blog of Joseph Schreiber. Writer. Reader. Editor. Photographer. View all posts by roughghosts