Can I be the guest of a house
Where there is no book of poems
Where Jibanananda does not gaze from the windows,
And Banalata Sen no longer asks—
Where have you been all this time
A house where Rabindranath’s Krishnakali
Does not glance at the courtyard—
If, on a monsoon night,
Memories don’t pour like rain,
Where will Nazrul go
Let every home in Bengal be a wondrous hour of poetry.
As we pass, let us glimpse Kalidasa’s Yaksha,
Walking behind the clouds toward Ujjayini—
Perhaps to Alaka, waiting behind leafy doors.
Far away, radiant Behula swings
On the crest of the tide in Kalidah.
In the backyard of a house beside fields of peas,
Where Jasimuddin never set foot,
I will not accept its invitation.
Let every courtyard of Bengal be a portrait by Sultan,
Every window a brushstroke of Zainul.
The house that is not a dream,
But the Brahmaputra in reality,
Let it drown in the floodwater,
In the shattering of grass.
I too shall be a guest, drenched
In the scattered syllables of rain.
Translated by Ashraf Chowdhury
