Lub-Dub : Translation by Nirupam Chakraborti

Lub-dub: from the book of melancholic verses

I

And that’s your neighborhood, see full of lots of fun

That’s your own space, go hit a petty jackpot

Inside your head see, neurons piled layers and layers

And your thoughts see : streaks so pure, white and grey

Why do you choke then ? Suffocate, as if to death!

You  hide, you lurk as if to catch a prey

Long time no luck, you skulk, can’t miss them all, no way!

It’s spring in your neighborhood; it’s all fiesta and fun

It’s loud rock n’ roll, it’s just pandemonium

The land feeds all, go help yourself, here anything and everything go

It’s neat like a clogged drain, that’s how the emotions flow

Sticky like buttered rice, so are the gossips low

Like red hot chili pepper, that’s how it is, you know.

II

In this state you are just calm and immobile. Detached, as if in a long slumber.

Then some miracle swirls around you, and you wake up startled

As if you are a fish, out of water, gasping for breath on a muddy river bank

As if there’s a crazy wind, rushing through a channel surrounding you

As if there’s a strange noise and gone is the gooey mess around you

Free you are:  as if a carcass saturates with blue venom 

The venom of an exciting awakening.

As if a bitter blizzard from the wintry north now opens the pages of your book of melancholic verses

As if its dry pages fly, your wounded fingers soaked in blood and puss -- as if they tend to move

As if in a desolate library the tables turn, the chairs shift, all on their own

Your brassiere flies away, as if never to return.

In your stale world of darkness now it’s the time of a huge tide

Now the waves rise, breaking the barrage, shattering the windowpanes

And from now on, all your neurons, your soul and heart, all saying lub-dub in unison

As if from now on you are alive and also wide awake.