Sketch of killing Self
A poetic and classic expression in time
Pijush Kanti Barua
Poet is a killer. A classic killer. He not only composes but also kills slowly and artfully himself to achieve a poetic birth. A mere human being when receives enlightenment day by day, blink by blink , he kills himself. He abolishes flesh and blood of his own to drink the nectar of poetic birth.
Every letter drawn in poetic discipline comes to life with the essence of verse after bleeding the poet himself. Mere words turn into a poem when poet-soul nourishes it. Thus a poet is killed day by day slowly and imperceptibly to give birth to a masterpiece called ‘Poem’. Such types of several poems are bunched between two covers and a book of poetry comes to light. Such book is a legal offspring of a poet. `Sketch of killing self' is the maiden poetry book composed in Bengali, which bears its real name" Athmakhuner Sketch" by Soumya Salek.
Poet Soumya Salek is born day by day, moments after moments by killing his mere physique and thus his family name 'Abu Saleh Md Abdullah' is dimmed. That's why the naming of the maiden poetry book is well justified. It doesn't sound much or it is not tongue less to be mute . And hence the name bears it's own colourful identity.
Forty five new and old poems are schooled with independent heading. It comprises six poem- paragraph, three prolonged poems and rest of others are regular, mythful, surrealistic and time representing poems.
Apparently, Sketch of killing Self (Aathmakhuner Sketch) is taken for classic of poetic rebirth. It has hope, rewards in the end and with progress of thought too. Love lies here in the jugglery of verses. The narrative dictions of verses are strengthened with divorce and departness too.
The fist poem of the compilation is 'Ushar Lyric'. That is ‘ Song of Dawn’. After a heavy darkness of whole night, morning glow of dawn peeps out. It brings light of ocean that eloquently expresses daylight. The poet becomes overwhelmed with glamour of hope with sparkling morning rays. In fact, 'Song of Dawn' flutes on driving away a deadly dark night, affluent morning glow was unveiling the hope to keep the poet confident.
Rises the field, grass and babies in laps_and rises the disease -lesioned tigress too. Thus, it brings a new hope for poet and all.
Among all poems , agonies of a black- skinned mother (Kalo Maayer Galpo) is the most easy and touchy poem. It's more than a poem. A classic painting of compromise of life where suffering never ends. It's a story of a very simple village- mother. This story is very common in almost half of the families in our country. In front of a pair of teen age brothers, their father used to find faults with their mother every now and then. He would always create a face of anger and dissatisfaction. The mother was illiterate and very simple. Ill tempered father would always misbehave with her. Every now and then the village-mother was tortured by her power exercising husband in front of her children. The mother, described in the poem, had got only a single drawback. That is she didn't shine in white skin. She bore black skin that looked ugly to his eyes. She never felt his love though she served silently the family like a winding doll. Love is let alone, she even didn't receive any honour before her sons. She spent her days at home like a prisoner. It happened regularly. This event made two brother more aged and habituated to their life that they became used to tolerate it rather than making any protest.
Another poem, that flutes my heart in 'Cow Boy of Civilization'. The poem depicts modern agonies. The village in now under the grip of city civilization. There is no more fresh air and fresh life in the village. Villagers learnt cheating too and it annoy s the poet. It recalls us from Tagore. So,' Rashu, I am not going home next week......... better than that, let's open book, drink wine of classic ancient Persian poems. It seems to express that poet becomes disheartened seeing village being half town loosing her beauty and heritage. Book of classic poems brings much more enchantress than cheating village.
In another poem, poet sketched city life with that of a fish in aquarium. Artificial luxury in town decorates life rather than giving purity. Fishes in aquarium are set for keeping guests' eyesight spell-bound . That's why they live their lives without any growth & development. Like modern 'Banosai'. Man of modern life in modern town is no less than that. Poet in city life, passes his days inhaling impure air with very limitation of thought and with food full of toxic preservatives. But poet is not convinced in the life like 'Banosai'.
All of a sudden, he meets a light of hope. He composes his hope...
'Slowly and quietly comes endless drought
When emotion attains purity in gentle bath of sleep
starts the bulk of speed
keeping open the night queen...
Flowers like dawn
And pour down breath into light
Wind will spread song
In gentle gail runs more
with thrilling winter breathe.....(Host Night's Turn)
When poet in thirst of hugging nature utters, 'Whole day world with restless opened-eye/ flies and flies darling clouds...(Monk of nature), then mother his thirst of voyaging heart bumps. That things he quenches in 'Rocky life' sipping the beauty of nature, poet says -Day by day tree turns into green life/ Rain drops become food for eyesight/ and...A piece of cloud gets loose from speedy sphere. How after autumn and Late autumn/ Spring breeze gets multi folds in colour combination/ As the moon denotes spreading trap of lamination/ How it entraps a loony soul.
Poet, who keeps night with nature, requests Oh! green rocky cloud/ Beloved beggar of love if possible/ Be her friend and bring my beloved’s news/ In turn cow boy song you will be rewarded. Thus slowly and gradually lover's heart germinates. He, then runs to Lady with Addicting Eye' and surrenders to her___
In sin and repentance, bravery and cold/ Physique wants physique- soul needs soul/ Thus few rivers, forests and part of sea were in the eyesight/ That known voice, some tunes would open the gate of mind so many times/ And there more water with tearing eye, heavier more/ Old attachment forwarded fast the age of seeing through/ How long restless swing, how much curse shedding blood/ Stone-weight in aching chest melts into hundred of river/ Oh lady with addicting eye, look at the wine spell ending beauty! Here, death is blissful, come let us bathe, come on, come on......
In the poem 'Opening the Innermost cell of soul', poet desires to make a miniature of love which radiates glow of beloved in its every curve. His progression of love is so tidy that, he became self confident to say__
'Pigmallion, __listen/ Paying so attention to blessings of venue/ By their hands of copper craft, I will make such/ Gallatin be unconcious and width of bravery - opens the deepest safe of soul/ A true lover can scan art like a jeweler....
Not only love or nature enchanted the poet, he applauded the success of both labour and sweat too. He announced loud and clear__
In my last birth I harvested paddy restless while scythe bathed with sweat. In my last birth, I netted fish without wasting time while it was full of hunger to occupy........
Effort of composing long poems depict a long background though poems are not so long. These are full of tale telling sappy capacities. 'Arrow of questions'....bears a simple style of composing story.
The poet, who killed himself from daily family affairs, feels profound thirst for mysteries sufism. Mawlana Rumi is his spiritual superman. Time and again he sips from Rumi for soul and sleep. He becomes spell-bound in Rumi and expresses his verse___
'I became so strange that I spent whole night in sleep at foreign land/ Loosing self as a whole can see the veil of eye dropped/ Thinking own a fire -sublimating solute of physique/ Oh! Rumi! Again I want to dance, though it may be faulty (The veil).
Poet blooms flowers of words in tripodi verses. Hope there remains, remains there the touch of mother’s love in the moist muddy scent that overcomes the agonies of life leaved.He could smell mother,her love,as it were he sprinkled over his body__
I've made me calm in grass , air and twitters of birds/ Flower bearing sky I voyaged with induction of nuptiality / Settled me in dust - me, a farmer's son.
He also tells us about a mother who, being unboundly annoyed due to her son's misdeed, killed herself just before the day of her son's death sentence. Can you imagine the sufferings of a mother, who could neither bear misdeeds of her son, nor could tolerate his death. Here we can see the expectations of her son who waited for his mother till his last breath but he didn't know she killed herself before her son's death. This is an epic presentation in 'Mother have'.
Mother's suicidal tragedy bleeds the poet in soul and it makes him looking for shelter from Rumi in threnody of tears and sleepless might. I touch and feel whirling dance of Rumi with art. I touch and feel glow of flowers, smell of breeze in raw sounds I touch and feel the dead bodies of the crazy. And when I touch and feel suffering – sounds those don’t remain suffering anymore. It becomes song of art that sounds in the depth of life.
The title bearing poem, ‘Sketch of Killing Self’ is a smooth narrative of a human being converting into poet.
'Torn the base and pillar
Honey flows out of broken hives in nails, back stalk and dust.
Sun and song making love, febrile stone touches heart...., It's enough to narrate that a poet is in the state of being built. That's why he says more and more
'Long cloak thrown, hibiscus-tinct fye
Better half respirates in tremble
Ether smokes in sin and repentance.
At last he fails sail of dawn, blue bunches of roses and thus completes the title sketch.
The last master piece of the compilation is 'As I learnt to step.' It's an ineffable note of art that grew with surrealism and mythological amalgam. He asked, 'Have to walk endless forest as I learnt to step?' He answer himself-
Rupturing green night, be a tomb of devotion by the bank of chandravaga, in glimpse of dusk, water in heart will siphon nocturnal love -Inka, Irbil and crossing Mediterranian, on archaic roads will walk, helpless like useless moon by day, where my tears could keep me/ Oh Rumi! would you tell me the threnody of tears and sleepless night?
'Death of koitoren Nessa' is a poem in local tongue that canvasses a classic movie before us. Soumya Salek has got a strong diction of telling stories in poems. A Koitoren Nesssa’s death brings no change to the surroundings. Today’s demon-filled world make the poet angry. Where the rest of the world is in deep sufferings, the west seems to be still without any panic. That's why the poet calls a painter to sketch the demon which likely to be-
Then his two legs become longer
stomach becomes bigger too
As flesh and blood is his only food
It needs both capital and killer-weapon
It roams north, east and middle of Asia, Africa
But the west remains unstirred
Come on painter if you could draw the demon [Demon].
In ‘Poet and Lady After Heart’, he made a good combination of Arabic and Persian myth to assimilate both myth and archaic culture that tells us about the burnt cry of unrest of desert of this morning. He tells us in fervent urge.
Kayes, roaming in this would, in the hot desert, wiped out by vulture / Kidnapped like one's own sex organ / Our memory mourns and yells / But once after million days it intends to listen / A poem of arrow-injured sorrows. Orchestra of effected colour'- says the tunes of words those are compiled by the poet which creates a musical harmony in heart when it sounds.
When the young poet utters-
‘Stepping in black feather of rythm...’, a wonderful imagination becomes live. Poet of ordinary origin with brown skin and remnants of tail, walks away over cracked civilization along the dried desert through vast expanse. Poet creates new township in his every foot step and sown new hope.
‘Sketch of killing self’ is a new life analysis of an old poet in artful dissection. Every effort of it may create new flow of art and the poet my ablaze to shine in his own poetic existence with creativity apart from his family existence.
Soumya Salek, the poet is more lively than in photograph printed on the back flap. By service he is a cultural officer of Bangladesh shilpokala academy with an M.com degree in accounting. He dedicated the book in the reminiscence of his nani, Mrs Aajmaten Nessa and maternal uncle Nurul Islam Bsc. His parents are Nazrul Islam and Rawshan Ara Begum. Cover drawing done by Atiqur Rehman and it is taken from Jilani’s drawing. Morseda Akhter, his wife, is the lady to preserve all rights about the publication. Prakriti Publication valued it for taka one hundred and thirty five only. The maiden book comes first into Amor Ekushe Book Fair 2016.
We hope, ‘Sketch of Killing Self’ will start a victory triumph for the poet in both reader’s and critic’s society. It may reach a long way in the journey to success.
