Excited to receive the news that Nilamani Phookan has been chosen for the 56th Jnanpith Award — a Jnanpith for Assamese poetry! Imagine. And about time too. And after 20 long years since Mamoni Raisom Goswami won the second Jnanpith for Assamese literature in 2000 (the first was Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya in 1979).

To celebrate the achievement, here’s four poems by Nilamani Phookan that I translated a long time ago.

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Considered to be the foremost modernist poet in modern Assamese poetry, the hallmark of Nilamani Phookan’s poetry is condensed themes expressed in economy of words. His collection of poems Golapi Jamur Lagna (Hour of the Raspberries) is considered to be a milestone which inspired a generation of poets. The density of theme makes it almost impossible to translate and paraphrase his poetry. He received the Sahitya Akademi awards in 1982 and Padmashree in 1990. His other volumes of poetry include Surya Heno Nami Ahe Ei Nadiyedi (The sun is said to descend by this river, 1963), Nirjanatar Sabda (Words of Solitude, 1965), Phuli Thaka Suryamukhi Phultor Pine (Towards the Blooming Sunflower, 1971), Nrityarata Prithibi (Dancing Earth, 1985), and Kabita (Poems, 2001). He has also translated into Assamese a collection of Japanese poetry, and also the poems of Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca. He worked as a teacher of history in a college in Guwahati.

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In the Moon that Darkens  

By Nilamani Phookan

In the moon that darkens the face and chills bones

I weep

and read your poems.

In you I find a flock of flying egrets 

in southern dawn,

when I no longer remain the same,

when the snow no longer remains the same.

You arrive playing a flute

on a boat

through a storm of yellow dust.

A melody of flowing peace

stands on each door —

Bodhisattva Padmapani. 

I walk under the fig trees

in company-alone, calm-tense.

In the tumbler, I contain silence

and noise —

even now we love each other,

even now

in hunger dies my offspring.

In the moon that darkens the face and chills bones

I weep

and read your poems.

Even on the other side of life and death,

my poet,

grant immortality to men, poetry.    

Don’t Ask Me How I am 

By Nilamani Phookan

Don’t ask me how I am

Even I haven’t asked myself

In Kolong floats headless

A girl

Who was I last night

A king, monk, farmer, a labourer

A lover, naxal, a poet

A tiger searching for water

After hunt

I’ve forgotten what I was

Don’t ask me how I am

I’m not the only one

Because even after the Last Supper

I couldn’t bid goodbye

Couldn’t let go either

After Auschwitz

I haven’t smiled

Or cried

Because I’ve forgotten where I’d go

From where I had arrived

The days survive barfing blood

Because the skeletons on the road

In the evening

Snigger

Because on the shop’s showcase

A pair of dogs lustily fornicate

Wearing a garland of male genitals

Blind Kali in Bhutnath  

Because everyone has just one fear

Even the dead men 

Whether to say or not, do or not

Whether to open the window or the door

Because wait there

Falsehood, lies, disguise, cheating and forgery

Generous, cruel youth.

Don’t ask me how I am

Because darkness

Now even that shivers

Now even that inflames

Behind mistakes, misdeeds and misfortunes

The flag of people’s blood

Because I carry on the pockets of my stomach

Two forbidden hands

Turning into red a bullet flies

To the heart

Because everywhere is the silence of peace

Fearsome noise

Don’t ask me how I am

In Kolong floats headless

A girl

Because for 42 hours

My dead body

Was lying on the street of Guwahati

Because my eyes are still open

Open are the eyes of my death

Because on the lake, pond, river, wetland

The fishes thrive

Oh, my rider of the steed

Who treads cautiously.   

In Dreams too He was Chasing Me 

By Nilamani Phookan

In dream too he was chasing me

Where may he be now?

Is there on his face

Still that uprooted tree?

Are the two rivers still flow

In his two lips to make the water red?

Are there in his two eyes still

Those pair of dark horses?

Even today, every night

My heart is trampled.

Dangling Hours of the Raspberries  

By Nilamani Phookan

The sign of the hand

Of the words that never cry aloud

Oh, the hour of the raspberries

That dangles from the broken bough of my heart

The sea-bird that flies above

The city that burns in fire

A finger dies slowly

A stream turns into ice

The hot lava that erodes the heart of heart

The Pagladia of darkness

Immersed to the neck in the sea

There’s a never-ending song

Oh, the hour of the raspberries

That dangles from the broken bough of my heart

The unbarred flute of the night

In the deep of the breeze’s nothingness

Oh, that ancient-cold of the hand’s 

Words that never cry aloud 

 

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