(for Manoranjan Byapari, a dalit writer who writes in Bangla)
You may dismiss all I record here
Stop! Please don’t ignore them as junk... Here it goes....Hope you hear me....
You will hear me one day, sure!
You can never hide your face, Priyotosh.
We’ll get you in streets and lanes
Of this incredible city of joy.
Long struggles
Demystified Byapari of false tags
of the caste-ridden society
beauty in the working class,
cooperation among the have-nots,
humanism among rebels,
simplicity among outcastes.
Byapari drinks them all.....
He salvages various concepts
from the hasty derogatory labels of the privileged,
and makes the understanding concepts
more complete and realistic.
We remain
as hands folded in inaction;
prisoners outside jail.
Lectures move electorate in a civil society
Justice cries in a caged cell.
Byapari writes a new history
As Shankha Ghosh recommends
His books for Bengalis,
Only Hope against Hope;
Artists are legislators of the world!
Let there be enough crackers to celebrate
it further
under an alien sky.
There is hardly anything ‘complete in completeness’.
(Shankha Ghosh is a leading contemporary Bengali poet and critic. He released Byapari’s book, “Amanushik” and spoke for Manoranjan Byapari on the 27th August, 2013 in an evening gathering in Kolkata.)
