A Moment at the Platform Platform no. 80. A momentary break during the journey. A journey with a single passenger. The train-whistle drifts from afar. One day at some station — Early or late — Late or early — A railway coach shall arrive and stop And I'll be its sole passenger. When the train shall chug away Towards its infinite journey It'll leave behind a little emptiness. An insignificant event. A routine incident. Nothing will be left with a meaning. Only a stillness shall remain Replenished by inept reminiscences. And a whistle dissolving in the darkness. A separate coach for just a single passenger! Just one passenger only. The other coaches are always crowded. On the platform the passengers' hustle. At the journey's end everything is meaningless. Just manifested infinity. It can be called an entoty with nothing (Perhaps nothingness too is baseless) And all-pervading peace Though there's nothing besides emptiness Yet therein—a gradual effervescence of elementary particles From whereon a few texts are left on an indigent planet With a few hints on existence
Translated by Krishna Dulal Barua
The Day l Met Him in My Dream The day I met Him in my dream, Him -- God, He said, you 're only an illusion. The phenomenal world is illusion. I woke up in my dream, I told him, If everything is but illusion, then illusion is the truth for me. And therefore I don't mind living in dreams. He was wrong, he thought, Matter is not real.Only transformation of energy. And none but He --- it's mass.** Though there is interchange of matter and energy He didn't think of the difference between them. If He is the mass of everything, In which world is His existence necessary outside matter? What is that place which is existence-lessness! To frame logical argument on the subject I didn't even meet him in reality. He remained there as an illusion. ---------------------------------------- **If without mass energy doesn't transform into matter, creation of the universe,too, wouldn't have taken place.The elementary particle called Higgs boson gives mass to other particles ( proton, netron, electron etc).That's why the scientists have nicknamed it god particle.
Translated by Uttam Duorah
Harekrishna Deka is a Sahitya Akademi award winner poet, short story writer and literary critic of India who writes in Assamese.
Krishna Dulal Barua is a prominent translator and writer based in Nagaon, Assam. He received the Katha Award for translation in 2005.
Uttam Duorah, the translator, retired as the HoD, English, Women’s College, Tinsukia and is based in Tinsukia, Assam.