Have
they destroyed your memorial monument
?
Don’t you fear, comrade,
We are still here,
A
family of ten millions, alert and wide awake.
The base that no emperor could ever crush,
At whose feet the diamond crown, the blue
proclamation,
The
naked sabre and the tempestuous cavalry
Crumbled into dust,
We
are that simple hero, that unique crowd,
We
who work in fields, row in rivers, labour in
factories !
Have
they destroyed your brick monument ?
Well,
let them. Don’t you fear, comrade,
We, family of ten millions
are alert and wide awake.
What
kind of a death is this ?
Has
anyone seen such a death
Where no one weeps at the head of the
departed ?
Where
all sorrow and pain from the Himalayas
to the sea
Only come together and blossom
Into
the colour of a single flag ?
What kind of a death is this ?
Has
anyone seen such a death
Where no one laments aloud,
Where
only the Siter turns into the
Gorgeous stream of a mighty waterfall,
Where
the season of a many words
Leads the pen on to an era of poetry ?
Have they destroyed your brick monument ?
Well,
let them. We forty million masons
Have built a monument with a violin’s tune
And
the bright colours of our purple heart.
The
lives of the martyrs float like islands
In the dark deep eyes of
Rainbows and Palash flowers.
We
have etched for you their names through the ages
In
the foamy stones of love.
That
is why, comrade,
On
the granite peak of our thousand fists shines like
the sun
the sun of mighty pledge.
Translated
by Kabir Chowdhury
Alauddin
Al Azad (1932--)
Poet,
Novelist, Dramatist, Critic and Story Writer : Poetry : Manchitra (1961), Surja
Jalar Sopan (1965), Novel : Teish
Number Toilchitra (1960), Karnaphuli (1962), Khudha O Asha (1964), Drama :
Yehudir Meye (1962), Moroccor Jadukar (1958), Story : Jege Achhi (1950), Dhan
Konya (1951), Mrigonabhi (1953). Critique : Shilpir Sadhana (1958), Mayachovsky
o Nazrul (1985), Nazrul Goveshana : Dhara o Prikriti (1992), Rabindra Classics
Abiskar (1982).