TRANSLATIONS: ARUNAVA SINHA

I wish to buy you, my love
Claiming personal possession – just the way the deed of a house
Carries the owner’s name

Didn’t some shameless hussy call you to her by your nickname the other day?
Can my lover be a local bus who stops every time he’s hailed?

The river saw a parade of glowworms on a night coloured orange with gunpowder, the beautiful bathing in the moon’s caresses
In the moonlight the river kissed him in complete secrecy
That river is dry today, destitute. The beautiful still descends
At midnight, his body now held by a river in her prime
Even the mynah that flies away to perch in the bamboo grove hides its lover
For fear of losing him. Birds don’t know how to sue, just as the Bengali woman cannot be happy
With the receipt of alimony from a husband who has forsaken her.

Before love bankrupts me I wish to buy you, so that you can never hit the share market
To hell with all this democracy and socialism; love means nothing but female dictatorship, noble one
You are in my grasp alone; I would like to remind you again. Any exception
Will lead to your being burnt alive, my boy; I’ll surround your home with several hundred trucks piled with sand
Your front yard will be filled with ammunition
Hence my cordial invitation to thou, noble one – transfer one hundred per cent of thy ownership to me.

I shall not shortchange you, I wish to buy you at a price of one billion kisses
If someone lovelier bids a higher price this evening, I swear by the lord
I’m ready to pay two billion too.
In cash or in instalments.
But still I must have your complete future ownership.