Great Poetry Series-2

I know you know
And yet you show
You do not know
And you ask
What is it I say
And what is it I mean
When all the while
I know you know
What i say
And what i mean.

Mirza Ghalib

(Translated by O. P. Kejariwal)

Great Poetry Series -1

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
"Love has no ending.

"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

"I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

"The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world."

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
"O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

"In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

"In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

"Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

"O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.

"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

"Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

"O look, look in the mirror?
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

"O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart."

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

By W. H. Auden

life? where??

Lives Not Lived

I was a bad student in school... in fact ( if I avoid the euphemisms),I was an awful student. Inever reached to the top ten.. no, not even top twenty... not even top thirty!!I made my highest achievement in school whenI was in class VII; I was 58th. Iused tobe proud thatI had at least made it to the top sixties. My childhood friend Tilat never made it this high after class III... and it is a truth universally acknowledged that it is much tougher to be 58th in class VII than to be 1st or 2nd in class III.

The first timeI flunked my math and science courses whenI was in class V... Maa couldn’t believe it (her daughter?! her daughter?! ). She was so embarrassed that she decided to go to Rajshahi to bury her shame... she did that. My mama went to get my report card and my teachers severely complained to him about my misdeeds, mishaps and missed classes!I prayed hard to mother earth to open up and swallow me in.... but alas... she was indifferent; she didn't understand the emergency! Too busy to hear the prayers of a 10-year-old. however her decision wasn't that bad; after all, where would this 25 year old blogger come from if mother earth had embraced her that day... life has her strange ways to dictate us.

I have suddenly rediscovered my SSC mark-sheet today. That’s the reason whyI am writing this drivel about school today.I remembered that i got 4 letters (more than 80%)in SSC but couldn’t think which subjectsI achieved those distinctions in.I discovered thatI got letters in Science (!), Maths (!!), Agricultural Science (!!!) and Religion (!!!!).... can you belive it?I cannott make even tiny calculations without calculators (thank god Samsung mobile phones have them), cant stand reading even science-fiction; and i got letters in maths and science! if you know me even for a week, you would know that the only muslim thing about me is my last name... and i got distinctions in Islamiat... ah selukas! what a strange world!

Some more feathers were added to my distinction glories after my HSC. From standing 58th out of a class of 200 students, I stood 16th in the Dhaka Board out of almost two hundred thousand students. So many doors of possibilities werewide open. I could have been a mathematician or a woman moulana or a shrimp-specialist or at least an entomologist…. I could not be any of those. Instead I ended up eventually as a student of English literature (where I topped the class, imagine that); and now I am a university teacher, something I never dreamt of becoming.

There is a famous “road” poem by Robert Frost where you always get to choose from two roads “diverged in a yellow wood”… the traveler stands “and look[s] down one as far as [one] could / To where it bent in the undergrowth”. He thinks and ponders; evaluates and reevaluates... and then takes the “different” one, the one he claims to be “less traveled by”.

But if you ask me… it all bullshit!

You never have any choice. Life chains you .. punches you on the face... handcuffs you and takes you to gallows. when (the hell) do you have time to ponder and choose between roads? Robert Frost had time. ... you dont. all you have is a drab and colorless one way. you cant even look back. there are crashes and bangs; speeding faces and fading music. your memory blots out every time you try recollect whether there was any other way or not. there was no other way...there is none!

enjoy your r.i.d.e.