With the Fair Parts of Shadows in Dhiman’s Labonya
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Cover designed by Pratik Chakraborty
At the very beginning let me present a stage show of the shadows:
Light keeps the darkness in its womb. Shadow plays hide and seek with them. Fair part of it engraves the light and shade on the cover page. A question rolls down into me… is my shadow follows me?…. is my shadow follows…… is my shadow….. I start my dark-trip with a missing warrant. Nilumwala’s tumultuous call inside my brain – light…light…light… Chokor came down from wicker-basket. Rimless delirium lighted her eyes. There’s a knee-deep indulgence at the darken doorstep. Sunlight of moon is in the interior of moonshine. Distance is so illusive that it looks like a voiceless notation on the magician’s finger. With a mild touch the butterfly-sleep comes down on my eyelash. The soft touch shows that the old cooing of cuckoo with an extended Phulgun has come down from moon. I set the cooing on my lips. The aqueous humor giggled at the back of cornea. I opened my eyes to see how the soil’s coating on the frame of shelter has been washed away silently. Again I start my dark-trip at the boundary of words, embraced by Dhiman’s charm, under the shade of fair parts of shadows.
Nilumwala’s- Bengali word for Hawker
Chokor – A kind of bird said to enjoy drinking moonshine
Phulgun – Bengali name of a month of spring
Few stars come down on my palm
in my live-together with evening
Their trust nourish my finger
The homesick flight
gives Labonya
gives Riya
With this gift egotism is put up to auction
Paused rain at the corner of eye
is in search of restless wind
tender salt is in nascent state with confusion
scatters sunshine with opened veil of eye
in sonata of love
Labonya – Bengali name of a girl, A lady character of the poet DhimanChakraborty
Riya – Bengali name of a girl, A lady character of the poet Swapan Roy
Love and fragments of sunshine take us a long way. Your second world walks freely with Riya and Labonya. The Phalgun with forgotten melancholy is ringing with the synthesis of left and right eyes. I have walked a long way with the reflected Riya from Swapan-beaker. Swapan has been bloomed in Riya’s eye with the rain-drenched Champak raga. Still I couldn’t turn the motion into any Labonya. You started the love-song in such a way that Riya becomes enlightened in unknown ambiance. In the pure light of rain-drenched evening there was boundless Labonya on her finger. The midday flew away with khulja simsim. The lost finger slowly went away towards the parallel world leaving behind the first life.
khulja simsim– Hymns used to open the door in Arabian novel Alibaba and forty thieves.
Champak – Bengali name of a flower.
Time is taken aback
by touching water-image of shadow
The moment is smashing
the endangered illusion of running future
The drunken butterfly maintains
the musical beats on rimless circle
Single sip of death taken from a blink of life
is weaving light on the feathered cardigan
Time will fly now
in front and behind
in extreme spring
in winterless exultation
I know the story of your bird-life. It’s a story of dual-world. When the Light jumps from dimpled cheek of Madhobilata and walks down with a smile in company withRiya, your first world speaks out. When the windows fly away in the fog beyond the wall, your second world speaks out by wiping its own shadow. I always thought to join both the worlds, if I could find the static point of the source. There was no story of the static point. How it becomes myth during the settling process? Introspection recognizes the door of internal dissension. Everyday another world is forming behind that, which is the secret world inside me. Once upon a time a bird flew in the possibility of direction. Today she drowses whole day. The static point also flows down in the time-stream. It’s undecided. Our entrance and exit are marked by symbolic words. As if the serpentine motion spreading over time is just to slough off. As if the opposite attraction is just to change the position.
Madhobilata– Bengali name of a evergreen creeper
Dew drop on evening-Sarod
Deer-hunt on silent lips
Arrow with a snake’s tattoo
shoots the invisible target
Accumulated night on the secret finger
Plays the snake and ladder game
with luminous crescent
A bunch of jubilee set to join
the broken parts of tears
The lost sky in slim Munia
laughs with the incarnation of Radha
The joint passion of North-Pholguni
opens the door
to the East window
Sarod- Indian musical instrument
Munia – Bengali name of a bird
Radha – Lover of God Krishna
North-Pholguni-One of the pair stars North-Pholguniand East-Pholguni; the twelfth of the 27 zodiacal stars according to Hindu astronomy.
Runa Bandyopadhyay 