This time
Ramakanta Samantaray
Translated by Sailen Routray
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| Photo crdit - A. R. Vasavi |
When you come back this time
I won't be there.
I would have left
to reach that mountain burnt with envy.
Or I would be sitting
alone
near the river dried up
with the thirst of our greed.
Would you leave from there?
Or would you start looking for me?
I have lost my way
in the dense jungle of faithlessness.
I have become afraid
with the storm, wind and lightening
of your indifference.
An ambush of tigers
have mauled me up
and eaten through me,
in my helplessness.
This time the flowers of the flame of the forest
across the jungle are becoming a little redder
in anger.
You would have forgotten me by the evening
after a really good shower.
Then you would leave for Puri in a hurry
in the middle of the night with an old flame
after tearing up the chit of paper
with our home's address.
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.
