Featured poem of SHASWATA GANGOPADHYAY from INDIA
Translated from Bengali to English by Rajdeep Mukherjee. ALTAMIRA

The artist who painted the drawing-sketch of a bison
in the mountain-cave of Altamira by rubbing dry colors
was none by myself

Yes, since then I always kept my constant watch on you,
you being the youngest daughter of a game-hunter
you decorate the stars of the sky with fragments of ivory
from Antares, Vega to Canopus, one after the other.
After that, how many generations had gone by
Hundred and thousand years lay down drowsily
Man's craze for religion grew intense,
and Buddhist beggars walked forward in search for peace...
Now after so many days we two
meet each other at Park Street in a quiet coffee-shop, enclosed in glass

Song was sung in husky voice in tune with guitar
Tibetan wooden masks were hanging upon walls after walls
As if they were the unfolded faces of ours,
following one generation after another, the old mementos.
Let us settle our old quarrels,
Let someone bring for us steaming coffee-pots

Let waves of time jump upon with a loud sound
Let somebody gradually lay us on the walls in a freeze-shot
as it remains in the figures in mountain-cave of Altamira Shaswata Gangopadhyay is one of the prominent faces of Contemporary Bengali Poetry, who started writing in the mid-90's. He was born and brought up in Kolkata and has participated in different International poetry festivals of Europe and both North and Latin America. His poems are regularly published in all six continents through translations in 7-8 languages. His books of Poems:
'Inhabitant of Pluto Planet' (2001), 'Offspring of Monster' (2009), 'Holes of Red Crabs' (2015) and 'Rhododendron Cafe' (2021). His 'Selected Love Poems' have been published very recently from Cairo, Egypt. He has been invited to read his poems in both UK and USA and Central American Book Fair, organized virtually, last year.