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

Nirmalprabha Bordoloi

At this very hour
The woods replenish me
At this very hour my body
Glitters as a mirror

As the land lily
The weather is changing its form
The sound of flutes
Has turned green

The bursting of silk-cotton
Needs no storm

Translated by Krishna Dulal Barua

Nirmalprabha Bordoloi (b.1933-d.2004) was an Indian poet, lyricist and folklorist of Assam.

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

Click here for the Assamese poem.

Nirmalprabha Bordoloi

The sculpture 
Bestowing form 
To a block of stone
Needs to remain bemused
By its own beauty
Needs to address 
Humanity.

Life
Is greater than
Death.

Translated by Krishna Dulal Barua

Nirmalprabha Bordoloi (b.1933-d.2004) was an Indian poet, lyricist and folklorist of Assam.

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

Click here for the original Assamese poem.

By Lakshminath Bezbaroa

A song of sorrow, a sad melody ;
A sigh in distress, rolling tears;
A black line of mourning, desire of the  thirsty;
The heartbreaking sob of a widow.
Happiness as a sudden glint of smile;
Sweet smell emanating from a rose, 
Flash of lightning revealing a moment;
Soothing moonlight and cascading water, 
The soul of the lyre flies and sings;
The flute on the branch softly murmurs, 
Graceful modesty of a woman so sweet, 
The half articulated words of a child divine.
A beautiful maid's face sweating in shyness, 
The jasmine bathed in morning dews.
The unsmelt keteki's golden pollen;
Vrindaban driven mad by Koliya's lyre.
Nature's desire is beauty coloured, 
Poetry is what a poet's imagination conceives.

Translated by Ananda Bormudoi

Click here to read the original Assamese poem

Lakshmiath Bezbaroa (b. 1864-d. 1938) was a renowned poet, novelist, playwright and satirist of Assam.

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.

Hiren Bhattacharya

What burns in my heart!
My woes, my joys
What keeps it widening more!

Within my feelings
The buzz of your love
Burns so briskly
That its ashes overfill
The inner and outer spaces of my heart.

Perhaps your cheeky love
Shall slowly burn me down into ashes.

Translated by Krishna Dulal Barua

Hiren Bhattacharya (b.1932-d.2012) was an Assamese poet and lyricist best known for his lyric poems.

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

Click here for the original Assamese poem.

Dinesh Goswami

Intense sunlight of day covered the bright palette of the sky
Sweat oozing out all over your body
On the morning grass in utter silence petals of night jasmine— as if dead.
And through my hands pass incessant languor
Nevertheless, sitting in the light of a resplendent dream
Like a drunkard in the intoxication of sunlight— I think
Deep faith unnoticed may have offered assurance
To life, to world: love is ingrained.
When the fog of remembrance wears off only a few things remain—
Names of a few flowers, one or two poems and a girl one loves
When there’s nothing one can claim one’s own!
Only emptiness remains. Suddenly when wonders of night
Descend down the banks of a golden river
Shadows of endless fatigue fall on the deserts of the world
The fragrance of the dream-thirsty heart spreads all over the universe.
I feel great courage pulsating like a life
The smell of the beloved woman’s body feels like
The yellow paddy fields waking up piercing the waves of soil.

Translated by Uttam Duorah

Dinesh Goswami was an Assamese poet and writer.

Uttam Duorah, the translator, retired as the HoD, English, Women’s College, Tinsukia and is based in Tinsukia, Assam.

Click for the Assamese text of the poem.

Durgeswar Sarma

Be lured not by my charming looks --
My doting eyes on a comely face,
Be lured not by my outer goodness,
Be lured not by the glint of love in my heart ;
All might end up along the path of vice --
However somewhere I'll crumble into bits !
Keep your eyes of doubt on my heart,
Be immersed not fully in my affection,
Love me if you feel inclined to, but without being dauntless
Keep not your love for me all along.

Translated by Krishna Dulal Barua

Durgeswar Sarma (b.1882-d.1961) was an Assamese poet and playwright.

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

Click here for the original Assamese poem.

By Navakanta Barua

If the sea asks me in the first fullmoon:
"Why do you excite me
So much from a distance?"
"This foamy enthusiasm for poetry 
Has been woken up in your heart
By my unseen kiss from far away.
Is this union from a distance not sweeter than
Pangs of separation that is near?"
If the moon refuses
Rabi Thakur will tell us.

Translated by Ananda Bormudoi

Navakanta Barua (b.1926-d.2002) was a noted Assamese poet, novelist and translator.

Click for the original Assamese poem.

Kabin Phukan

Your savoury fragrant Phalguna
Its breath's warmth, its stirring heat
The opulence of its lips and fingers
Its moist incorporeality and body
Send my mind's mist
My body's winter
Flying afar...

The gloss of the Mahua blooms
The honeyed voice
The soft bodily touch
The smile's swing on the chubby bosom
Melting and dissolving the woes of Paush
Cuddle me with songs and trillings...

Your Phalguna draws my Bohag
Closer and closer
    

..............................................
Phalguna : eleventh month of the Indian year (February-March)
Bohag : first month of the Assamese year (April-May) heralding spring
Paush : ninth month of the Indian year (December-January)

Translated by Krishna Dulal Barua

Kabin Phukan (b. 1946-d. 2011) was a noted Assamese poet and critic. He received Sahitya Akademi posthumously for his collection of Assamese poems Ei Anuragi Ei Udasi in 2011.

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

Click here for the original Assamese poem.