AMALKANTI BY NIRENDRANATH CHAKRABARTHY

 AMALKANTI 

- NIRENDRANATH CHAKRABARTI

Nirendranath Chakrabarthy

A

AUTHOR INTRODUCTION

NAME                         :     Nirendranath Chakrabarthy

BORN ON                   :     19 October, 1924

BIRTHPLACE           :     Kolkata, Bengal, British India

OCCUPATION           :     Poet

WORKS                       :    Neel Nirjan

                                            Bibir Chora

                                            Saada Bagh

                                            Pitri Purush

DEATH                         :    25 December 2018

TEXT OF THE POEM:

Amalkanti is a friend of mine,

we were together at school. 

He often came late to class 

and never knew his lessons. 

When asked to conjugate a verb, 

he looked out of the window in such puzzlement 

that we all felt sorry for him.

Some of us wanted to be teachers, 

some doctors some lawyers. 

Amalkanti didn't want to be any of these. 

He wanted to be sunlight- 

the timid sunlight of late afternoon. 

when it stops raining 

and the crows call again, 

the sunlight that clings like a smile 

to the leaves of the jaam and the jaamrul. 

Some of us have become teachers, 

some doctors, some lawyers. 

Amalkanti couldn't become sunlight.

He works in a poorly lit room 

for a printer. 

He drops in, now and then to see me, 

chats about this and that 

over a cup of tea; then gets up to go. 

I see him off at the door. 

The one among us who's a teacher 

could easily have become a doctor. 

If the one who'd wanted to be a doctor 

had become a lawyer, 

it wouldn't have made much difference to him. 

All of us got more or less what we wanted, 

all except Amalkanti - 

who used to think so much about sunlight 

that he wanted to become sunlight.

(Translated from Bengali by Sujit Mukerjee and Meenakshi Mukherjee)

SUMMARY OF THE POEM:

This poem tells about his own friend Amalkanti who came late one day to school. When his teacher asked to solve the grammatical stuff i.e. to conjugate the verb he saw outside the window. The poet says how he and his companions felt sorry for Amalkanti's pitiful state.  Amalkanti who aspired to become sunlight. The speaker of the poem says that in his class when teacher asked about the ambition of the students everyone started to tell that they will become a teacher, a doctor, an engineer , a lawyer and so on.  And now Amalkanti became a printer worked in poorly lit room. Every one become what they aspired to but Amalkanti alone stand far away from his ambition.