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Ramakanta Samantaray

Translated by Sailen Routray

Waterdrops on Echeveria (Mysuru, Karnataka, India)
Photo credit: commons.wikimedia.org/Timothy A. Gonsalves

Why had he come

at such an odd hour?

I really do not know.

Does anyone ever come to our home 

after checking the dates,

that he would have written us

a letter before arriving?

But your job was

to just open the door.

After you would have given 

a glass of cool water and some tea

then he would have talked

about his home, village,

health, happiness, sorrows,

and unwritten poems

or his state of affairs

or some good news.

You could not know.

Or did you stay silent, 

despite knowing?

That I could not know.

He went back from the door.

It did not open.

Where he did go

after returning from here,

I do not know.

I wasn't home.

Was I really

not at home that day?

Perhaps I was there.

Perhaps I was knocking on the door

after having become the noon, the loo.

Perhaps despite knowing everything,

I had not opened the door,

having become darkness, 

and rooted in ignorance.

Perhaps... 

Note: The Odia original of this translated poem is sourced from the poetry collection 'Asaranti rekhachitra', published in 2022 by Bhubaneswar-based publication house Barsha Publication. The poet Ramakanta Samantaray, born in 1972, has studied painting at the Bibhuti Kanungo College of Art and Craft (Bhubaneswar), and Odia Literature and Language at the Utkal University (Bhubaneswar). His doctoral work was a meditation on contemporary theatre in Odia. With this combination of literature, language, and the visual arts, he has been constantly working to create hybrid narratives. Apart from being a painter, he has also published fifteen books, including collections of poems and short stories, and novels. He has written and published articles on art, artists, and monographs in Odia. He presently lives and works in Bhubaneswar.