A Poem by Malay Roychoudhury on Tagore

What Subject What Subject

by Malay Roy Choudhury

Arrey Rabindranath, remember? I danced with you?
raised half-folk ding-dong around my fingers on monochord
from crowded Free School Street to the clove market of Sadar St
while walking along you said I am coming from Silaidaha
on my way to Alumuddin Office.

On your lips made of fire and water there was still
trace of Holy Song what heat what heat you threw away the
gabardine robe I found leeches on your pink person
there are lots of leeches in rainy Jorasanko

At the whiff of mutton kebab from Selim’s shop, What are
the muslims cooking, when you asked he replied, ‘Don’t you
know? Its bull meat! Why don’t you give a try? ‘

In the tea stall bald-headed goat-bearded Vladimir Illich
golden hair Vera Ivanova Jasulich and like your silver beard
Axelrod and Martov whose cheek was quivering
you asked, Where are their torsoes?

Since I was unable to stop my dance you wanted to
donate me your monochord as whoever got a chance has taken
away dances from your feet and now even during daytime

halogen lamps are on what joy what joy

Your three-legged chair is lying on Sadar Street balcony
you had broken it while making tumultous love, it is written
in your Autobiography with year & date what love what love

The horse of your carriage is singing like a cuckoo
grandpa Rabindranath and all those spawned from your
sperm are eating fried horse-grams from the floor

What are these? I replied, ‘crows’. What are those
called? I said, ‘You better ask Selim, he raises gangland
money in this area.’ What divinity what divinity.

(Translated by the writer from his original Bengali poem “Ki Bishaya Ki Bishaya”)

You can watch Malay Roy Choudhury read the poem in Bengali here

This poem along with a few others by the poet can also be found at Poemhunter.com

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Malay Roy Choudhury is a Bengali poet and novelist, a founder of the Hungryalist movement of 1960s that challenged the conventional ideas and expressions of the times. His poems appeared in influential literary journals of the time like the City Lights Journal and Kulchur, and was highly regarded by litterateurs likes of Allen Ginsberg, Octavio Paz and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Following the publication of his poem “Stark Electric Jesus”, Roy Choudhury, along with other Hungry Generation members, was prosecuted by the establishment. He lost his job, friends and relatives and was chastised by a section of the media which led him to give up writing in 1967, only to return with a renewed vigour in a decade and a half later. Since then, though largely unknown to the masses, Roy Choudhury’s works have constantly attracted researchers world over.