This is the alley Named after Kinu the milkman. By its side stands A two-storey building Its ground floor room Is enclosed by iron railings. It is thoroughly damp Here and there its walls Bear ugly damp marks In places their plasters are also peeling off. On its door hangs a rag Torn from a bale of plain cloth Stamped on it is An image of Lord Ganesh, The god who gives one success In all enterprises. With me In that room lives another creature Who of course pays no additional rent It’s a common lizard Found in dwelling houses The only difference is this - It is in no want of food. For my food I have to give tuition To the young son of the Duttas For I am only a junior clerk In a business house And my pay is only twenty-five rupees. In the evenings I go to the Sealdah railway station There I spend my time For it saves me the cost Of lighting my room. There is a lot of noise Of rail engines and their whistles And a lot of hustles and bustles Among passengers and porters At half past ten I return to my lonely den Utterly dark and silent. In a village On the banks of the river Dhaleswari Lives my paternal aunt It was settled That a hapless fellow like me Should marry the daughter Of her husband’s younger brother. The date fixed for the ceremony Was found to be very auspicious But on that very day I fled away At least it saved the girl from a calamity And of course me too. To me she never came But now she always moves about in my mind – Clad in a Dhakai sari And on her forehead with a blob of vermilion. When the rains come very heavy and thick I have to spend some extra money For my journeys to the office by trams. For late attendance Often I have to suffer cuts in my salary. In every nook and corner of the alley There gather heaps of putrid wastes — Peelings of fruits and vegetables, Carcasses of cats and dogs And various other things. Like my deducted salary My umbrella is full of holes And my office dress is always wet Like the mind of Gopikanta Gosain Over-saturated with devotion to his deity. In my damp room Like a beast caught up in a trap, Delirious and unconscious, The shadow of rain clouds broods. Day and night it seems Without any hope of release Forever I am condemned to a half-dead world. At the bend of the lane lives Kantababu With well-groomed hair And a pair of large eyes He is a man of refined tastes His hobby is to play on a cornet. At times the vicious air of this alley Becomes alive with music Sometimes it is in the dead of night Or at dawn, half in darkness and half in light, Or again in the afternoon’s glimmering twilight In the evening all on a sudden When the sindhu-baroan raga is played on The whole sky resonates With the timeless cry of a pining love Separated from her beloved. At moments like these I realize This alley is so absurdly unreal Like the ravings of an insufferable drunkard It also seems There is no difference Between a mighty emperor and a poor clerk Along this plaintive note of music Both the prince and the pauper Travel together towards the same heaven. And where this music is true There in a timeless twilight The Dhaleswari flows on Its banks are deeply shaded by tamal trees And one who keeps waiting in the courtyard Is clad in a Dhakai sari And on her forehead with a blob of vermilion.SourceThe script ran 0.001 seconds.
The script ran 0.001 seconds.
