translated by Soma Roy

Let us go to Moon or to Mars

*

No empty space remains here.
On railway-tracks, in between the Gulmohors,
Atop coconut trees
How did so many skyscrapers spring up?

*

Even a small piece of land is not available here.
Let us leave the grasslands then,
and fly into the sky.
There we will build a thatched roof –
our own dream house.
That is better,
That is the best.

*

Despair be kept aside,

*

The whole sky is there for us.

Translator Soma Roy was born in 1959 and brought up at Chandernagore, then earned a master’s degree in chemistry from Burdwan University. After working for some time with an international bank, Soma retired and is now teaching at an English medium girls’ school at Kolkata. Soma studied German at the Goethe Institut, Max Mueller Bhawan, Calcutta, and completed a course in translational skills conducted by the Comparative Literature Department of Jadavpur University. Soma has translated into English a book of Bangla poems and is also doing some translation work in German.

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