Poems by Ramchandra Pramanik.
Translated by Sreejata Paul
Among the poets who had their calibre established right in their first book in the 70’s Bengali literary scene, Ramchandra Pramanik was definitely one of them. While the early days of his writing career were fraught historically with intense political turbulence in the state, his poetry did not reflect that. What did it hold then? A deep waiting. A constant pondering which set him off on a journey of consciousness. A search which could be for Death, for a beloved, or God. Because one can discern in his verses, coexisting with rationality, a certain free-spirited tousle, carrying a lingering shadow.
“Here lies not a woman, but the corpse of one —
With calm thighs, vagina, groin, arms, breast, cheek
Not yearning for coition, but offered in devotion.
Delicious wet skin torn open by the sun, its nails and teeth,
Bloodstained sacred efflorescence on white bones,
Accept these offerings, the fruits, the flowers; devour all, oh carnivorous god!”
(Ushri Parey Ratri)
Ushri Parey Ratri was Pramanik’s debut collection, after which he self-exiled from the world of Bengali poetry for a good many years. But the book, the first collection, had introduced to the world a voice potent enough for a keen reader to not mind chasing his works down underground. His poetry most certainly does not carry any recognizable semblance to any others. Neither does his prose. Unlike the hoards, he rejected offering another ode to the infinite beauties of nature, but came up with a rhetoric for nature, oozing at its heart with a wild primordial redolence —
“The blood-stained moon hangs off the branches of an ancient silk-cotton
spreading red on the ground, nothing more than dewdrops — just dew.
A bell tolls on the Ushri river, the intoxicated jungle teeming with hilly blooms.”
(Ushri Parey Ratri)
A rooted self-awareness permeates his poems. It is true that poetry seldom cares for the subject, but here we see that the poet has infused the inner world of his poetry with numerous life
experiences. Such as in this poem,
“I have looked, dazed at her naval, upturned brass vessel
Water burbling down–oh maa!
What pain–what water
Pain water–moves and conchshell sits quiet
Burbling
Bloodflow–or, flower–red hibiscus
Na-khuri–stretch your hands, take your pick
For offering.”
(Ushri Parey Ratri)
Here, the intimate agonies of childbirth, whispers of the womenfolk of different ages, and moments inside the birthing chambers in rural Bengal, have come alive in this poem. His first book of poems,Ushri Parey Ratri,came out in 1987. The poems clustered under the subsection “Ushri” were composed during the first half of the seventies, during the era of unrest caused by the Naxal movement which stormed across the state of West Bengal. However, these poems almost denied the demands of the times, and revealed a constellation of conscious and subconscious perceptions. But we cannot define them as mystic either, as, more often than not, they shimmer with motifs and images of an undoubtedly sexual nature.
“Every so often, duck feathers come floating by in this gully docked by the
banks of Lake town, comes the big boat
Steeped in saline waters, mangrove smells
Waft in the wind, at midnight
Foreign ships, confident, whistling
Barge into Kidderpore”
(Ushri Parey Ratri)
Pramanik abstained from poetry for nearly twenty-five years after his first book of poetry came out. Then, with the reprint of the same in 2012, his pen too returned to writing. In 2017 came out his second book of Poems, Madhuram. Written between 2012-2016, these verses show a stunning transformation. A spiritual peace prevails here. Veils of complexity and conflict appear to have dispersed, as if the raging subconscious has hibernated. The introductory poem in the collection goes such,
“Window adorned in Kunda blossoms and the gate canopied under
Madhabilata
The sleepless nightbird calls and calls
And the clouds sail through the sky
The moon runs along
Flooding the yard with fragrant moonglow”
(Madhuram)
One must stop here to admire the exquisite imagery. As if nature has come together in an intimate conversation with the poet. They have plunged deep into the unanswered questions that leave us perturbed. More than mystery, hinting of sexual perception, Madhuram appears as a distant realm, risen above the quotidian. There, one can only offer their obeisance.
“Birdcalls stirred up like ululation
Sapphire came aglow through the pitch darkness
As soon as the sun, wings spread in the wind, flocked
And perched over the tree,
awash in dew, horizon,removed the mist, opened her eyes
Not too far, temple too woke up, bells tolled”
(Madhuram)
The poet turned the natural imagery almost spiritual— sacred as mantras. Sky glowing like sapphire and sunshine flocking like birds— I have never thought about elements in such refreshingly evocative similes. Such is the poet Ramchandra Pramanik. One who is discovered anew each time you read him. Sailing from poeticity to the sublime, His movement has surely enriched the treasury of modern Bengali poetry. Oozing with spontaneity, his literary genius spreads far and wide, continuing to affect mindful readers. It is impossible to even talk about some of his masterpieces, for they are intensely symbolic, and carry hints of all kinds. Journeying through his poems requires a psychological maturity and understanding. Life for him expands beyond death and irreparable loss–it stretches on both sides of what we know as death. The poet moves towards a ceaseless flow of love and life. Ramchandra wrote, not under the spell of some divine muse, but with unflinching honesty, as he moved through life’s experiences. Some of that lives on in memories; some stay alive in some obscure village corners. So, what we find in his poetry is not divine prophecies, but real flesh and blood of real timeless existences, gossamer fragments of life, natures in villages, and a human tale, smitten and engrossed in awareness and daze. “O reader, come, let me sing to you a kirtan of that lost times” (Hathaka Darpan)
- Written by Animesh Mondal
(Transcreated from the Bengali by Bishnupriya Chowdhuri)
*An expanded version of this essay was originally published in Phoenix magazine (Issue 32, Vol 29, year 2024-2025) in Bengali under the title, “Kobi Ramchandra Pramaniker Kobita:Bahoman Ushrir Parey bose lekha Ratrir Modhurotomo Nirabataguli”
Translator: Sreejata Paul is Assistant Professor of English at Shiv Nadar University, Delhi-NCR, India. Her research and writing largely revolve around Islam in South Asia, women’s intellectual networks, utopian and science fiction, and environmental and plant humanities. She has been translating literary and critical work from Bangla to English from 2017 onwards and is currently thinking through what words one leaves untranslated, how to capture changes of mood when translating verse, and the role of gender in translation.
Poet: Ramchandra Pramanik was born in 1951 in a remote village of Bengal. After graduating with a master’s degree in English literature, he started working at a bank but moved on to join the civil services of the Government of India as an Income-tax official. He started writing at an early age; he was also associated with the editorial board of “Sangbed”, a Bengali literary journal. His debutant collection of poems, Ushri Pare Ratri came out in 1987.And It wasn’t until 2017, that he let the second book of poems Madhuram out.He has been actively engaged in writing since, working on fictions, plays and essays. His Memoir Hathaka Darpan garnered much acclaim from the critics and readers alike. Agunkhaki, Onayatta, shaapbhrasta and Abahaman Bharat Katha are some of his short story collections. His plays include Tuglak, Debal, Kalpakka and Akshahriday. He has also worked on a number of essays on poetry and crafts of writing. Opposite Banks and Other Poems is the first collection of his poems in English translation.
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