Event
Ramakanta Samantaray
Translated by Sailen Routray
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| St. Nicholas Church in Mavrovo, North Macedonia. built in 1850 commons.wikimedia.org/Daniela Stefanoska |
You had come so soundlessly that
while opening the closed door
there wasn't even a creak.
You came, it felt nice.
All the old things
started looking new.
Birds who had lost their voice
started singing.
The wind opened the window
and started being naughty.
The whole city's moonlight came
and heaped up on the courtyard and the terrace.
Flowers showered themselves
on the tree that was long asleep.
Life,
started feeling good again.
What inopportune thing did I say
that you got up and went out
at such an odd hour?
You slammed the standing door
with such a bang
that it burst like thunder.
After having come so silently
you left with so much noise
that my heart is now deaf.
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.
