Sambhunath Chattopadhyay
Translated from the Bengali by Kingshuk Sarkar
Ratan Bagdi’s Wife
No tears, no farewells, no vermilion, no sandal-paste for a last toilette.
No fire. No pyre was lighted. Nothing, but sheer neglect…
In the dying light of the day, she lay on a desolate sand-spit—abandoned
like an idol after worship, left to the wind and the waves.
On our side—the city, its evening lights, its worldly games,
its temples bustling with oil lamps and ringing bells.
The distant bank—eerie. Silent.
Drawn by fate or by a fateful mistake
a firefly sat on her night-black hair
bathing her face in blue starlight (but for a moment).
Then the jackals came for the heart of matter—
fat, marrow, blood, flesh.
In bluish daylight on the sunny spit
the final scene lingered for a few days:
blood-red bones, faceless.
In the desolate heart of the river
for the first time in life
I saw what life
forever hides from life.