In this ancestral house
The few doors that we had
Have all been shut one by one
The windows around are also closed.
But just one window is still open
And through it alone the southern breeze
Sometimes enters and plays inside
Hums a tune and oblivious
Stays awfully rapt.
This lone open window
Even in this hard time gives us
Extraordinary gifts like birds' chirping
Rain soaked cool air
Gold dust hue in the late
Ashwin afternoon sky.
Yet those gifts alas folks
In some inhuman process get
Readily paste on our wall
Turn into rotten handbills or
Some disconcerting column in a Dhaka newspaper.
Oft this humdrum consequence of life
Drags itself to its terrible destiny
Dropping down at the feet of death
Like earthenware unbecoming and ordinary.
Insensate masses do not know how to counter these
But deep inside the
Human heart
Terrible protests take solid shapes.
And suddenly how strange Out of protests come:
Gracefully existent love, offerings of flowers
Dreams of green crops extending to the horizon
Fruitful trees, fertile women and faces of the newborn.
The newborn also gives out its utterance of protest
And its tremendous cry
Suddenly opens all the windows.
And no one dares to close them down again.