Sutanuka RoyRamachandra Pramanik is a prominent Bengali poet whose work spans years, genres and temperaments. The Opposite Bank and Other Poems is the first collection of Pramanik’s
work in English and comprises selections from his two volumes of poetry, Ushri Pare Ratri
and Madhuram. The title is interesting and intriguing — the “opposite bank” is not merely a
remembered homeland but a symbol of distance, longing, uncertainty, death or the unknown.
The river serves as the central metaphor and the volume is a poignant exploration of duality
and transition—“On the opposite bank/ of this saffron river, he waits…..Soiled dhoti pulled
over my shoulder—/ I cross winter’s calm river/ I will go, Prabhu, to you I will go” (“The
Opposite Bank”).
“The blood-stained moon hangs off the branches of an ancient/ silk-cotton/ spreading red
on the ground, nothing more than dewdrops–/ just dew./ A bell tolls on the Ushri river, the
intoxicated jungle teeming/ with hilly blooms,” writes the poet in “Gone to the Forest”. The
narrative weaves its thread between the past and the present and the ‘self’ versus ‘other’. The
hauntingly beautiful landscape is raw and corporeal and steeped in reflecting the emotional
state of the character/poet. The poet uses nature as desire, tension and existential crossing.
The poetic style is characterised by a grounded simplicity, which is Pramanik’s signature
style.
Pramanik’s early poems often contain raw corporeal imagery—“It was a pale, tender
body. Over there,/ snake-charmers have surrounded the village and set up home./ Did she don
the saree that slid off and lay on their tent’s black-/and-white floor?/ Is the wilderness now
replete with her body’s fragrance, her eyes’/ blue glow?”(“Confidential Knock”); “Colossal
body laid out over the gleaming table,/ abrasive back, distended white abdomen./ Are you
scared? My dear, soon you will be contrite;”(“Crab”). The poet does not romanticize rather he
makes ‘the body’ real, biological and unabashedly honest. He plays with his lived
experiences and does not fantasise about them. The setting is steeped in local nuance and the poet
consciously retains his bangaliana making it feel like a living character whom you meet on
the road. The poet gracefully extends modernism into a deep, visceral, and existential plane.
However, there is a tonal shift in the poems from his later collection Madhuram.The poems are introspective in nature there is a movement from turbulence to contemplation. The
poet calmly accepts the existential crisis—“The dumbfounded poet wonders how that mythic
scintilla/ dispersed into this corner and that from some divine world” (“Mythic Scintilla Of
Life”). “His three ‘Tiger’ poems and the three-part ‘Poetry of Contemplation’, along with
‘Missed Call’, “Daydream’ and ‘Metamorphosis’ among many others span a wide trajectory,
from the empirical to the ontological, with noticeable poetic elan.” writes Sanjukta Dasgupta.
Pramanik’s poetry is more concerned with the crossing—from this shore to the other. “Water
returned to water, soil to the ground, air to the atmosphere/ whose ten hands wrap up the
earth, and life/ to heaven, the illimitable kingdom in the sky”, “Ash can then scatter so much
life. How astonishing!”(“Ash”). The poet stands at the threshold of crossing as he is in the
mundaneness of finite existence —and the poem turns to that moment before creation when
nothing existed and attempts to look at life, death and consciousness as an endless journey.
Using the central metaphor of the river, Pramanik finds a metaphor for recurrence, with life
curving inexorably towards death and death leading inevitably to life. “Spectator clouds
above, sunlight creeping through the gaps/ and caressing them with all its hands, kissing them
on both cheeks./ The dumbfounded poet wonders how the mythic scintilla/ dispersed into this
corner and that from some divine world” (“Mythic Scintilla of Life”).
Sreeejata Paul’s sophisticated, creative and deft translation of Pramanik’s poems transcends mere linguistic substitution and bridges the gap between cultures, rendering the soul of The Opposite Bank
and Other Poems rather than just its words. She captures the poet’s stylistic, rhythmical, and
poetic nuances and makes them accessible in the target language.
Translated: Sreeejata Paul
ISBN: 978-81-984413-0-0 (Paperback)
Edition: (2025)
Pages: 88.
Published by Moving Words, The Antonym Collections.
