The Party and Other Poems
Author: Gouranga P. Chattopadhyay
Pages: 128
Year of Publication: 2019
Price: Rs 300
ISBN: 978-81-941819-4-1 (9788194181941)
About the Author:
Born in 1931, Emeritus Professor Gouranga P. Chattopadhyay spends his time writing, reading and visiting his sons and their families and Santiniketan as often as he can. After retiring he has worked as an organizational consultant with a socio-analytical approach and occasionally he travels to offer workshops within India.
He has published seven other collections of verse, all with Writers Workshop, India, between 1983 and 2016. His hobbies include translating Bengali literature into English, hiking and making walking sticks. He is a yoga sadhak and Karma Sannyasin of Bihar School of Yoga with the spiritual name of Tattwaratna bestowed on him by Paramahamsa Niranjanananda Saraswati.
He married his love Arati in 1954 and they lived together in bliss till 2011 when she suddenly passed away from cardiac arrest.
Teaser:
The Party
The party went on
When the moon in shame
Hid her face in layers of wet cloud
The rivers danced on shingles
Till the water in wounded glory
Quietly lay down on the sleeping earth
And the lamps running out of oil
One by one fell asleep.
How do you expect me to party with you
When my one and only true love
Got lost forever in Hinduja Hospital?
With the tears yet to dry
I wonder if I even know
The right from the wrong
With the coiled snake of lust hidden behind
The lid of the charmer’s wicker basket
Left loosely shut
The snake watching for the time to rise and strike.
Vishnu Sharma’s Panchatantra story of Varondoiba pakshinah
With ekodara prithak griba’s trouble becomes infinitely more
When it ceases to be a story to teach brothers
Fighting for an inheritance to desist avarice
And descends as an exasperating reality within a single individual.
[8 PM, 4.8.2015: Madhuwanti, Santiniketan.]
Contents:
82 poems