Skip to main content
Outdated Browser

For the best experience using our website, we recommend upgrading your browser to a newer version or switching to a supported browser.

More Information

Poetry

Creating Creatures

By Binoy Majumdar
Translated from Bengali by Arunava Sinha
In these poems, written during a stay in a psychiatric hospital, Bengali poet Binoy Majumdar gives instructions for creating new birds, fruit, and trees.
Etching of a bird flying over the countryside with a view of a city in the background
Bird of Paradise by Jacques Callot in the Rosenwald Collection of the National Gallery of Art

Creating Creatures

What I’m about to write, readers, is hard to write in verse.
So I will write in prose.
You are a sound god yourself you have seen how sound gods look.
Say your name is Arindam. You have seen how the word Arindam looks.
A long time ago I created the word ngungu the same way, the word was printed too.
As you realize I created a new god named ngungu for the word ngungu did not exist anywhere before.
You too can create a new god or goddess this way, though you are a human.
Write ngangunga on a piece of paper. Look at the sky, see, a new god is visible.
All of you are humans. Can you now write a word with yng instead of ngu?
Yngayng. Look at the sky. A new bird is perched there. On its belly it says new. So the bird is a new one.

 

Creation

My readers, I have already informed you in verse
of some ways to create birds, butterflies, humans, etc.
But it’s hard to say if birds have been created.
It’s hard to say where birds fly after birth, where
butterflies take wing after being created.
For this reason it’s necessary to create trees too.
Looking at a tree tells you it’s new. Eating a fruit
tells you it’s new. This is why I created a tree—
Its name is hrryvina. The hrryvina fruit is a new kind of fruit.
Now let me create one more fruit-bearing tree.
The hrrya—the hrrya tree, the hrrya fruit. Are
they new—this is how readers will know:
Look into the void in front and say emphatically, Hrryva.
You will see fruits more or less
in the void. A new kind of fruit, hanging from
the tree.
Pronounce the word hurry without the second letter
That’s the hrry of hrrya. Look, the stone
is also visible within the fruit.
Forai haa—say it loud, forai haa.
Look in front of you, the foraihaa fruit
Is hanging from the tree in the void. Look:
the stone within is visible too. Creating these fruits
proves birds have been created, butterflies as well.

Originally published in Bengali by Prativash Publication. Translation © 2024 Arunava Sinha. All rights reserved.

English

Creating Creatures

What I’m about to write, readers, is hard to write in verse.
So I will write in prose.
You are a sound god yourself you have seen how sound gods look.
Say your name is Arindam. You have seen how the word Arindam looks.
A long time ago I created the word ngungu the same way, the word was printed too.
As you realize I created a new god named ngungu for the word ngungu did not exist anywhere before.
You too can create a new god or goddess this way, though you are a human.
Write ngangunga on a piece of paper. Look at the sky, see, a new god is visible.
All of you are humans. Can you now write a word with yng instead of ngu?
Yngayng. Look at the sky. A new bird is perched there. On its belly it says new. So the bird is a new one.

 

Creation

My readers, I have already informed you in verse
of some ways to create birds, butterflies, humans, etc.
But it’s hard to say if birds have been created.
It’s hard to say where birds fly after birth, where
butterflies take wing after being created.
For this reason it’s necessary to create trees too.
Looking at a tree tells you it’s new. Eating a fruit
tells you it’s new. This is why I created a tree—
Its name is hrryvina. The hrryvina fruit is a new kind of fruit.
Now let me create one more fruit-bearing tree.
The hrrya—the hrrya tree, the hrrya fruit. Are
they new—this is how readers will know:
Look into the void in front and say emphatically, Hrryva.
You will see fruits more or less
in the void. A new kind of fruit, hanging from
the tree.
Pronounce the word hurry without the second letter
That’s the hrry of hrrya. Look, the stone
is also visible within the fruit.
Forai haa—say it loud, forai haa.
Look in front of you, the foraihaa fruit
Is hanging from the tree in the void. Look:
the stone within is visible too. Creating these fruits
proves birds have been created, butterflies as well.

Read Next

An intricately carved stepwell in Ahmedabad, India.