Gradually I Turn Out To A Human Machine Poem by MINTU DAS

Mintu Das

In a whirlpool of stiff breathing
My pen remains silent
Fretfulness of trying times all round
The child workers, browbeaten, could not even
Make me weep

Hard actualities of common men
Do not even leave any mark
In the tailor station of my mind
My heart's sandy façade too fails to bear
My spirited words

Gradually I turn out to one of human machines of
Ash-coloured world
Could not I share smiles with my fellow beings
Could not I play with the house sparrows
Gradually I turn out to a dumb man for the dead sun
Showing corroded teeth me in my breathing on my evening walks

A big failure my life is
That is run without fuel
Gradually as if I turn out to a human machine

The mechanical world makes me forget
The helpless folk living on the sandy riverside
It allows me burning while keeping alive
Like the prisoners

A long while
I've not treaded on such a path
The path where blooms countless roses
The path where revolutionary missiles are on the run
A long while
I've not participated

Gradually I turn out to a human machine.

Translated from Assamese by Abhigyan Anurag