If You Must Ask Me

If you ask me, 'what have you done with your life' then I must tell you... One day I vomited, one day I swallowed One day I touched the water and it changed into milk One day by looking at me a heavenly girl lost herself One day without telling me both my hands flew away in the wind One day I hid in a drunkard's stomach as a strong drink the next day I came out, in another way entirely, as the tears of a beautiful woman and at once the muslin handkerchief sucked me in with sympathy One day I beat her, one day I kicked her One day I stuck out my tongue One day I lathered myself with soap One day I lathered her If you don't believe me, go and ask your wife One day I managed only caa, caa One day I took on the scarecrow One day I adopted a pig, Oh Yes one day a goat One day I played a flute, Oh Yes one day for Radha I played One day I pressed my face into a woman's lap, while the rest of me fell to someone else If you don't believe me, go and ask she-who-is-my-fate One day my body was a bag full of green leaves and my fingers were long white lillies and my hair was a cumulus cloud--- when the wind comes, it will float anywhere One day I was the grass in field after field, but only because you will come and pour your body out onto it yes, my eyes exceed all commands they roam from river to river to river On the river Ganges I lay my body down, like a small bridge so people can go from this side to that, no passports from that side to this came your own mother once, a teenager in her first sari While writing the Constitution of the nation, I got a bit sleepy in that moment someone came and scribbled on it: oh, oh I want to make her One day running out in the main street naked I submitted this year's budget One day I opened my mouth and one day I shut it In the yawn of my Yes-saying mouth there is no food and in my No-saying mouth there is no food. One day blood dripped down my cheeks I looked for my torn-out eyes in the water and the mud of a field One day a knife stabbed me in the back I collapsed into the yard before the hut, coughing blood the village crowd came to see me with lanterns held up One day body ablaze, I leapt from a burning hut and fell into a pond The next morning I was surprised to see it in the newspapers I got so excited tears fell, I called people, sweat dripped from our foreheads I kept the assembled sweat in my file cabinet If anybody comes to do research in the future they can set fire to the documents and burn many people Kill! Kill! Kill! Adopt two different techniques for men and women Kill! Kill! Kill! Since the heart has come from the mouth since the baby has come out of the womb Kill! Kill! Kill! In this place we must use screams that break the skull In this place we must use such intercourse half the body will be dumped in the earth after and turned into coal In this place we must spit so that when it comes from the mouth, it explodes like stars In this place we must use a duet, a song in which the hero and heroine will fly in the sky and the hands, legs, head, and genitals will rip away--- all from a song every limb will cry out for every other limb each limb left will caress what is left at last they will fail to know what to do next and they will return to their previous form Here you must use a kiss that kills--- one that seizes and then lets live, so the lips smash each other trying to unite the lips of abandoned lovers will open to the sky for an eternal kiss If you ask me today, 'why have you written lies in hundreds of lines?' If you ask, 'why didn't you learn the duty of a poet ... still why didn't you learn?' I will lecture about a particle I will explain that I was born from a grain of sand I was born by salt and the anonymous drop of rain that watched me from a leaf on a high branch of a tree and then jumped onto me I know nothing more than this If you ask me today, in what phalanx, in what black hole, in what hidden drains of the nation I wander, in what armoury do I drink a cup of tea, against what billboard do I smash my head, over what big bridge or dam, what deer came and nuzzled my foot, what swan prayed to me to come and twist her neck Over the cloud, under the cloud like thousands and thousands of drops of rain I jumped & danced in the fields and the cities If you ask me today, how many buds do you have on your plant? Are you shundillo or bhardwaj? durlov or koiborto? Are you mango tree or banana? Do you wear shoes or sandals? Are you Muslim or Pyre-attendant? Are you a worshipped stone or are you alive? Then I will tell you the story of that night, that night on the calm grass field when a long minaret spun and burst from the ground mud and stones shot out and vanished into the black heaven From the long fire tail in the sky I jumped arms spread into the revolving foam womb of time Now I am in the last ocean after all the distances and the iron wheel revolves under the water Now I am at the very beginning of the ocean and the iron wheel revolves under the water What is bodied and what is bodiless? All are awakening to the robust life through me I am moving through time now I stroke in two directions, past and future I am a monstrous fish lashing my tail the water-pillar in the ocean rises and falls the fountain of water springs from my nose it creates a burning cluster of cloud A rope is fastened to the sword on my nose the other end of the rope goes on and on to where no earth, no solar system exists to where the dark ether wave swells with stars and cosmic dusts there from one galaxy-island to another a life-craft of flame floats on that's all, that's all I have nothing more to say to you [Translated from 'Aaaj Jadi Aamaake jigyes karo' (Bangla) by Skye Lavin and Joy Goswami]