By Chandrakumar Agarwala

The flower-bud that bloomed
Wafting fragrant streams of love
        Dropped and withered away.

The honey-sucker of flowers,
A mad bumble-bee
        Just keeps rambling round and round.

Its inebriation of the heart
In flight all around
        Disappeared too with sprinklings.

What ensued after remained unknown
The marks and memories melted away
        Nature only remained as before!

[Translated by Krishna Dulal Barua]

Click here to read the original Assamese poem

Chandrakumar Agarwala (b.1867-d.1938)) was a notable Assamese poet and journalist.

Krishna Dulal Barua is a prominent translator and writer based in Nagaon, Assam. He received the Katha Award for translation in 2005. He can be reached at kd_barua2008@rediffmail.com

By Ambikagiri Raichoudhury

Rise young blood, rise today, rise,
Rise with a volcanic eruption --
Break the nodes of indolence into dust
Covering the earth with the flow of work.
Rise young blood, rise today, rise,
Rise quaking both heaven and earth,
Slaying the nation's woes and indigence,
The stains of bondage in the alleys of disgrace.
Rise young blood, spilling your spates of blood,
Immersing the numbness of the nation,
Let the golden ragas bubble up
With the thriving of greenery upon the earth.
Rise young blood holding in your lightning-fist
The hammer that crushes and rebuilds,
Let all hypocrisy in the name of nation-building
Fly away pounded into dust.

Translated by Krishna Dulal Barua

Click to read the original Assamese poem.

Ambikagiri Raichoudhury (1885–1967) was an Assamese poet, song writer, playwright and freedom fighter of India.

Krishna Dulal Barua is a prominent translator and writer based in Nagaon, Assam. He received the Katha Award for translation in 2005.