'Chhaarpotro' (Entrance-Pass) by Sukanta Bhattacharya

Translated from original Bengali by Saikat Guha

I have heard the news from

The child who is born tonight:

He has got a pass,

And hence he asserts his rights in the new world

With shrill cry just after birth.

Small fragile is his stature, yet his strong hand

Upright, determined

To some unknown resolution.

The language is not comprehensible,

Somebody laugh, others neglect.

But I have discovered the language in my mind

And received new message of forthcoming age--

The identity I read in the new-born child’s

Vague misty eyes.

The child has come, I have to leave space for him;

We aught to have left this diseased world

Full of failure, corpse and destruction as burden.

I shall leave-- however, till there is pulse in my vein

I shall clean garbage of the world,

I shall transform this world as ideal for children--

This is my firm promise to the new-born child.

After the completion of my deeds

With my heart’s blood the new child

I shall bless,

Then I’ll be history.

Note:

Sukanta was a promising poet of Bengali literature who died only at the age of 21, just when his art was maturing. Nevertheless, the slender bulk he left reveals his surprising talent and depth of thought. He was attracted by Marxist idealism. In this well-known poem, he dreams of rebuilding the rotten society in order to make it fit for the future generation.