Shubhrangshu Roy
Our Unrelenting War

As in the constant battles
Between good and evil,
Between gods and demons,
Between sky and earth,
Between rain and drought,
So, too, there is a never ending war
Between sacred unadulterated speech
And bright intense poetry.
For, poetry is the mistress of deception,
Endowed with the quality of the seer,
Who sees...
Hears...
Speaks...
Twisting words
That are unspoken...
Unheard...
Unseen.
Like the friseur
Who grooms the tresses
As companion to the fair maiden
And, in doing so,
Brings the dead
Back to life.
And in that twisting and turning
Of the unrelenting war
Virtue suffers a million deaths
Bringing great grief.
And yet, in the isolation
Of that standalone win,
Poetry is reduced
To penury and abstinence
Leaving the field barren
For sacred speech
To sprout once more!
In a neverending
Play of Shadows.


© Shubhrangshu Roy

Shadows of the Fragmented Moon,
Hay House Publishers India, February 2022
Purusa Sukta
To the Call of Imagination

One perceives
In the glow of the burning lamp
Shining in a thousand eyes that move
A thousand feet
As a thousand faces rise in the heart
Embracing this earth at a distance
Apart ten fingers
In the glow that's all there is,
Was, will be.

That ruler forever rising
Where there is food for thought
And the One, more this than that.
This world just this, that space thrice as much
And so this One takes flight
This world its quarter,
This mind far taller, that space
In imaginations unparalleled.
Awe!

Feet on ground, head up in the sky
And so is this nature born of that One
In which this One springs to life.
And to that One this one offers
Its being, as out flows Snow White
In the glow of spring and the heat of summer
In the fire of fall
In which that One is born of the offering
Upon the sacred grass.

The light, the senses and intellect dispelled
In that pit of fire, the lamp
Where all force is poured.
That stuff of life is gathered
To awaken the beasts that fly
That forage, that dwell
In the glow of lamp
Born to the chants that rhyme in steps
Making connections.

In the clatter of teeth where cattle abound
Where that One shares in the many a multitude
The mouth the mind
The arms the strength
The thighs power
The feet the ground
The priest, the prince, the polity
Erect on the plinth
Of time.

The mind, the moon, the eye, the sun
The flash and fire of the mouth
And the wind of breath
The space emerging in the.womb
The head the sky, the feet the h/earth
The ears the ways of sound
And this world set to clockwork motion
As that One dons the seven shades
And thrice as many in its streams
As the senses gather around the pit
To make the offering once more
In this lamp of that fire
To shed this one in spurts
In its own image of One too many
That One now, resting in this one, the other.


© Shubhrangshu Roy

Rg Veda, 10.90
Pixel
10 January 2023
Ladies In My Life...

WOMAN!

No man ever lived

Who lived not

For the maid Unmade

In the Wicked heart

Flowing deep

In faith what must

Must be

Wonder

Woken

To make

Belief 

What is

Not, but

The Woman

The Man

Embraced

By her, for her 

Always forever

Was. Is. Will be.


© Shubhrangshu Roy

International Women's Day
08 March 2022
LAMENT: Baby’s NIGHT OUT!

This is Tom. He could well be Dick.
This is Pu. She could well be Puss.
How did Tom and Pu get there?
For heaven’s sake, they can’t quite tell.
For, they never sought the road to hell.
So, here’s what Dick and Puss wish to know
While you cuss and curse
And swear and shout.
What got you going to push us in
Right into the choking well; who flushed us
Out the stinking drain?
That nearly drowned us in trauma, pain
Alive! You’ll never know, mom, how it feels
To swallow all your toxic waste:
Blood and acid and pee and poop
While going down that constricted chute
As you rant and rave.
And still you wail since, long, and loud
In bitterness, not knowing love
Begets pain, ’fore pain begets love
Suffer you did at birth no doubt; so did we.
Then why still feed your shitpot woes?
The memory of pain is just a thought.
O mama dear! Be kind, be sweet.
Why scream and scorn
And us ill-treat?
From (our) birth till (your) death
We do not part, dear Ma, O dear!
In dignity, grace let’s make fresh start.



© Shubhrangshu Roy

Mother’s Day,
10 May 2020




DISCLAIMER
Disclaimer
×
The language of poetry traverses a wide and variegated landscape. Lament has been penned in the image and idiom of populist feminazi literature, that seeks to reduce motherhood to perverse pain and indignity of the woman’s soul in search of liberation and equality.
It needn’t be so.
Apart from borrowing notes from contemporary counter narrative on motherhood, the tone and tenor of this post does not seek to offend individual sensitivities.
Instead, it seeks to reassert that the birth of a child is a sacred passage of a pilgrim from ‘outerspace’ to this beautiful paradise we call earth.
In the four billion-year-old history of the known Universe, there is no evidence yet of life on any other planet, star or galaxy.
Motherhood must necessarily mean cherishing this painful privilege of birthing new life that is sacred and worth preserving, not because it’s a woman’s bounden duty to do so, but because there is no other option.
True, women must be empowered. There’s no dispute on that. Educated women deserve to fly First Class on their own terms, by their own sweat, as much as their educated spouses aspire to do. There’s no second guessing on that either.
It’s then, the poor, illiterate mother who lacks an option. But, even in her suffering and pain and humiliation and sacrifice, she respects her sanctity of birthing. She’s really the one who needs a choice.
Without exception, that choice of birthing, and when and how, must exclusively be the mother’s prerogative, irrespective of whether she is rich or poor, educated or illiterate. The mother, the woman, must make that choice.
But, equally, she must not denigrate that one chance of life’s regeneration in this unimaginably vast Universe, with expletives that spout forth from her flaming tongue.
For, the chant alone is sacred. And the birth alone is sacred.
And that sacred journey to heaven on earth must necessarily be walked through hell both by mother and child. That’s how nature ordained it at conception.
There’s no other path to tread.
Motherhood, above anything else, is the tunnel to reigniting the lamp of life. So that one lamp might light another.
Generation after generation after generation!
But to light that lamp, the wick too must burn.
Generation after generation after generation!
Thank you, mother, for giving me life. Thank you all mothers as well, this Mother's Day, today... and everyday!

The Devil’s Song
Gabriella o Lucifera!

Gabriella: ’Sup, sweet bitch, in your world of colour-en-scent?

Lucifera: Scorchin’, young lass, with pain of burning flesh that lusts-en-craves.

Gabriella: Aha! pretty bird, they still sing your paens at Cinema Paradiso
Can’t you darn your wings back to shape?

Lucifera: Ah, Gabriella! Have you heard not my magic whisper? Come, read my lips.
My chalice long smashed to smithereens.
For Hollywood’s sake, I can’t return to your utterly dull, plastic world, devoid of gloss-en-glam.
For the one who despaired to poison this world with passion, why surrender my cravings?

Gabriella: You lost your place at suppa, the last one, when you painted the Virgin naked, lowering His gaze before the fireflies.

Lucifera: Glowworms? Fire ignited the glow in this spec of dust-en-dirt.
He messed with me, so, my bit(t)e(r) alone concocted Adam’s heady cocktail.
While you play lock(h)er room from the comfort of your couch, guess who’s caught in hellfire -- you or I?
Barbie waits on me, helpless, and so does hapless Elle, as my lusty pout pummels bottle after bottle, one decanter after another, a glass once more, a sip at a time.
Suffocating within your walls, go ask God, the Virgin, the Virus, this one last thing: Who coloured Adam’s drink with scarlet drops?
I prick His heart with my needle eyes.
And you toast: “Cheers! All-a-you! I luv U! Allahu!”


Devil's Prayer
O Lord God, Violent Virgin Virus, raise Me, thy Spirit, Sky High,
again and again, so that I may simmer in thy Sin once more!

© Shubhrangshu Roy


Devil’s Song Gabriella o Lucifera has been transcreated by Shubhrangshu Roy.

It is a reworking of the National Poet of Pakistan Allama Iqbal’s original Urdu rendition, Jibrail o Iblis, and is inspired by contemporary happenings.

Devil’s Prayer is an original composition by Shubhrangshu Roy.
In Joy and Goodness

In the realm of Joy
In the kingdom of Goodness
Abides Truth Beautiful!
Gloriously effulgent
Centred in the gigantic dome
Feet resplendent
In Her bejewelled creations.
The planets and the stars
And the radiant Moon
Whizz past at breakneck speed
Drenched proud in the eternal rays
In this the grand design
The world rising, rejoicing.
In celebration, salutation
To your breath-taking, undefined beauty
That reverberates
In the calm sanctuary
In the realm of Joy
In the kingdom of Good
Where abides Truth Beautiful alone!



© Shubhrangshu Roy

8 April 2020


This is a transcreation of Rabindranath Tagore’s Bengali original Anondo Loke.
I pray not to be steered in this storm!

I pray not to be steered
Into a safe harbour

When caught unawares
In the fierce storm of life

All I wish for instead:
May I not cower in fear

When dark calamity haunts
My existence on earth

It’s okay if you are unable
To douse the flaming pain of my soul

All I pray for, instead, is the strength
To overcome my uninvited sorrow

I ask not for you to lend me your hand.
That’s fine. May my resolve not waver

When my world is visited upon by harm
And I am heaped upon with scorn

May I never be rescued by you, my dear
Just grant me the strength to soldier on

I ask not of you to bear my burden
Nor do I crave to be consoled in gloom

All I fervently hope for is to swim
Through the calamitous tide of time

May I behold your stupendous face
In the bright morning Sun forever

But in the tipping moment of the dark night
When the world rises against me in one

May I not lose my faith one bit in you.
My love!


© Shubhrangshu Roy

5 April 2020


Translated from Rabindranath Tagore’s
Bipode Morey Rokkha Koro.
Alone!

Alone!
Walk the lonely mile of your heart
Hold that teardrop in your eye
When silence erupts and faces turn away
In doubt and fear.
Bare your soul to speak your mind
Alone!
Wayfarer O!
Turn that thorny bend and heal
As you shine…
Your path in that streak of lightning
On a storm-wracked night.
Alone!
Keep walking.
Alone!



© Shubhrangshu Roy

Excerpt from Hey!Ze, 2019,
to be published


Translation of Rabindranath Tagore’s
Jodi Tor Daak Shuney Keo Na Ashe.
Keep Walking

Why the heck must I falter door to door,
When I carry strength on my able feet
When right ahead of me there runs
A long expanse of cobbled street.

May I not rest till I reach my goal
For, it’s my job... to keep walking
I say something, I hear something
I share some load along the way

It’s great I got to meet you darling
You helped me cover a good distance.
What else should I call myself, Walker?!
For, it’s my job ... to keep walking.

Walking through this half-life of mine
I gain something, I lose something
Surrounded by hope ‘n’ despair
I laugh sometime, I cry sometime.

Heed: never give up, no matter what
For, it’s my job... to keep walking
We wade thru the vicissitudes of time
In this giant Universe we call our home

Who else is there who does not bear
Joys and sorrows of life, like u and me
Why must I crib then: Time’s running against me
For, it’s my job... to keep walking.

I kept wandering door to door
In search of that elusive fullness of life
But, the cobbles stood up against my feet
With every step I took down the street.
This is what life’s about, why must I despair then
For, it’s my job... to keep walking
Some walk with me along the way
Others turn back halfway through

But the momentum of life relentlessly runs
Whoever falls, must fall behind
Joy finally comes to the one who walks.
The one and only... who keeps walking.


© Shubhrangshu Roy

31 March, 2020


Written on the occasion of mass exodus of urban migrants in the wake of Covid-19 lockdown.

Translation of Shivmangal Singh Suman’s Hindi original Chalna Hamara Kaam Hai.
My Love you too!

My love you are, my buddy you too
My religion you are, my faith you too
My body you are, my soul you too
My warmth you are, my life you too
My Ka’abah, qibla, mosque you are,
And steps leading to them you too
My Quran you are, my rights you too
My duties and pilgrimage you too
My doles and prayer you are
My piety too, my piety too

My knowledge …
Remembrance, contemplation
Delight,
Ecstasy and love you are
My light you too, my hope you too
My desires, gains, setbacks you too

You are all I see around,
My pride you are, my deliverence too
My faith and honour you are
My glory and shame you too
My sorrows, joys, tears and toys
My illness and remedies you too
The reason I sleep you are
My beauty, fame, luck, fortune you too.

It’s you I seek now …
And forever search
The known, knowing, knowledge you too
The chill of my breath you are
The storm of my tears you too

My mole you are, my hair you are
My pride, my glow up you too
My tattoo and mascara you are
My gum, tobacco and hash you too

My lonelieness, excitement, craze you are
My tear too, my grief you too
You are my beginning, my end you are
My hidden revelation that too you too
You are my thunder, my rain you too

My land beloved, scorching desert
My rivulet and sand dunes you too
O Beloved, you take me, The One,
My sovereign you shall be then too
My Sultan then shall be you too
My bass rhythm and string apart
My destination you are, my destiny too.


© Shubhrangshu Roy

Excerpted from Hey!Ze, 2019,
to be published


Translation of Khwaja Ghulam Farid’s
Mera Ishq Vi Tu sung by Pathaney Khan.
Aaqa
Master!

How do I praise you?
O light divine!
That fires my being, that warms my heart
That glows my soul, with true love of desire
That makes the world go round and round?

La la Lord
A la Lord
La la Lord
A la hu!

Wherever I turn, your grace you light
You call to prayer in the niche of my heart
The one and the only, the you forever
Your mystery revels in hide-n-seek

It’s all your doing, my love, my master
It’s all your doing, my love, my master
That’s all that’s said is all that’s done
It’s all your doing, my love, my master
That’s all that’s said is all that’s done
It’s all your doing, my love, my master

Why seek then, the hand of love;
Why seek the balm from another hand?
When you’re the one who goes round and round,
With love and care to heal our wound
Your door, then, must we knock forever

It’s all your doing, my love, my master
It’s all your doing, my love, my master
That’s all that’s said is all that’s done
It’s all your doing, my love, my master
That’s all that’s said is all that’s done
It’s all your doing, my love, my master

You are
You are, you are
You are
You are, you are
A la hu, you are

O master, O master
Creator, nourisher
When lost to the world
And lost forever
You are the one and only refuge
When devious darkness descends on us
You brighten our lives in the glow of dawn
The moon and the stars are all your making
In them you shine as light divine

It’s all your doing, my love, my master
It’s all your doing, my love, my master
That’s all that’s said is all that’s done
It’s all your doing, my love, my master
That’s all that’s said is all that’s done
It’s all your doing, my love, my master

In poverty I seek to scale rich heights
Now watch my destiny take flight
You erased my errors, the world didn’t see
You seized my heart with clemency…

Why seek the favour of one n all?
Why reveal my state to one and all?
When you shall bestow whatever I desire
Your door’s next door for me to knock on

It’s all your doing, my love, my master
It’s all your doing, my love, my master
That’s all that’s said is all that’s done
It’s all your doing, my love, my master
That’s all that’s said is all that’s done
It’s all your doing, my love, my master

You are lord, god, master forever
Sustainer, nourisher of world and whirls
To you we bow here, hereafter
You are the beginning, you are the end
You are the one and the only forever
Where all we go is where all we praise
The one that sustains our world and whirls
To you we bow here, hereafter
You are the beginning, you are the end
You are the one and the only forever


© Shubhrangshu Roy

Excerpted from Hey!Ze, 2019,
to be published


Translation of Aaqa sung by Aabida Parveen and Ali Sethi, Coke Studio 9.
Shudder the Thought, Zainab

Shudder the thought, Zainab
Shudder the thought, Zainab
Brother dear, where to find you
Once Zainab gets back home?
Just shudder the thought, Zainab

Allah dear, our tent destroyed
Ruination knocked down our home
That’s now Zainab’s lifeless abode
Just shudder the thought, Zainab

With Qasim-Abbas gone waste
Akbar, Asghar slaughtered as well
Who’s left to welcome her home?
Just shudder the thought, Zainab

When curious neighbours begin to ask
How her arm’s turned deep blue
Who will she turn to?
Just shudder the thought, Zainab

Lungs bursting, she steps indoors
Remembering her dearest bro
Her heart swoons with every step
He’s gone to return no more
Just shudder the thought, Zainab

Silence may speak a thousand words,
But how can she do so?
Without a word from brother dear
Zainab can live no more.
Just shudder the thought, Zainab

Her face unveiled, fetters unchained
Even death eludes Zainab
There’s no telling what suffering await …
Just shudder the thought, Zainab


© Shubhrangshu Roy

Excerpted from Hey!Ze, 2019,
to be published


Translation of Ghabrayegi Zainab by Nasir Jahan.
Chant of Shyama...
Or The Evening Song

O Woman! Saviour.
Dispel my sorrow with your love that flows
In the warmth of your wisdom
That weaves
The illusion
Of this world and its wealth.
Of knowledge and contentment.



© Shubhrangshu Roy

Excerpt from:
iT
The metamorphosis of the metaphysical into the monolith, 2021
The Honeysuckle!

The Universe, and everything we see of it,
Is make-belief.
You make.
I believe.
You unmake.
I remake.
Come to think of it:
Your dream. My daydream.
Your darkness. My delusion.
Someone's already been there, done that!
It's just that the patterns kept changing
While I peeped inside your kaleidoscope.
So, be warned. I am not the eternal, ephemeral Virgin.
Your mind is just another honeysuckle that bloomed in sunshine.
There's no point running between fact and fiction.
It's the chase alone that jostles for space.
Then what's the truth really all about?
Does it exist?
You need to dig deeper. And deeper.
Now, and forever.
For, you can never immerse in the nectar of the honeysuckle by alighting on its petals.
And yet, I may choose to alight on the petals alone.
I may be in love with the delight of the honeysuckle that dips its head in shame.
Small wonder, then, the dip is so frightfully deep.
Do I need to dive the depths to suckle.... the honey?
I must find out.
Which is why you must ask.
Or is it that you are scared? Too scared.
Did I ever try to dig the deep?
Did you ever try and choke on breath?
Did I ever dive and drown?
Because you were so much in love with your pleasing crimson petals.
And that's alright.
Because that illusory ideal may well lead the honeysuckle
To its best flush yet.
Sometimes, your lie can lead me to my own truth: I can.
After all, it's all mental contortion.
Like the butterfly curling its snoot on itself.
For, once the monarch butterfly uncurls its snoot to suckle the honey, it invariably curls it back again to the vast emptiness where it belongs,
Each curl a subtle interruption in the flow
Of the nectar that oozes forth from within you, the honeysuckle.
Each flutter of the wings, a chant that strings together his Universe.
Come to think of it. Think hard.



© Shubhrangshu Roy

Excerpt from:
iT
The metamorphosis of the metaphysical into the monolith, 2021
The Spiraline Centre!

For, when the serpent uncurls, you invariably come to nothing without a core.
There's no centre.
The spiraline power that uncurls to hiss, curls back into the silence of its core... the metaphysical dot.
Each curl a subtle interruption issuing from its own flow and absorbed within her.
Each hiss, a chant that strings together her own Universe.
And that Universe emerges and dissolves as the serpentine force curls and uncurls...
Curls and uncurls...curls and uncurls.
The dark nothingness that voids the Universe is all in the outer space ...
A self effulgent vaccum that feels no need to be filled.
No need to be fulfilled.
That's where you reach when you ask.
Come, ask. And why not?
Come, ask the teacher. What's the question?
For, the question itself hides the 'quest' for answer.
Can the two of us embrace each other: The quest and the question?
Come, ask and you shall know.
For, to ask is to thirst for.
For, the one who knows, seeks.



© Shubhrangshu Roy

Excerpt from:
iT
The metamorphosis of the metaphysical into the monolith, 2021
I live in You!

I live between Birth and Death
Propelled by a Force…mighty
Active in my Being
In transit…growing, growing, growing
Of body and mind.

Life happens…in a Split…in a magnificent moment,
As I journey from State to Station.
I Give, so that you may Get
As I reach for journey’s end.
And thus, I paint my Icon in you
Of the Self in the other Self
Through All that is…
But an Idea.

At my core is the idea of me
That has no Beginning or End…
Riding the Cycle of the Birth and Death of I.
Shedding my several shadows…
In my eternal passage through time and space.

I am Self-evident
I am Self-reliant
In the sum whole of the I in me…
In the manifest
And the unmanifest
That is in the Nature of I and all
That is created … and uncreated…
Co-related … co-dependent.

And the Force of nature and that Nature of force
Never were One born and the Other dead
Pervading the emptiness without
Pervading the emptiness within
In the immeasurable Hole
And the measurable Dot

Beyond the realm of the known and the unknown.
In the Eye of God
In the i of me
Brought together by Hope, measured by Faith
En route my passage to Heaven
On Earth, on my way through Hell…
I find Love…
In my idea of me,
In my image in you.

Born out of which is the basis
That brings the I and the Icon together
In the fullness of the I
In Heaven
So that I live once more
In You!



© Shubhrangshu Roy

10 January 2023