If The Border Calls me
If the border calls me
If the emergency signals arise from the seabed
I shall pick up the heavy uniform like an armour again,
The ceaseless siren-wail in the wind will swallow
the trace of my voice,
Shall I leave behind someone in tears?
leave behind doubts?
Perilous skyline, if death beckons me…
One day, the desert-sand fading into darkness told me its charred history,
The mountain-peak told me the chilling tales
of its rebirths,
The shadow of the dead bomber is frozen in its chest,
On the pine-leaves someone wrote the letter
of a green heart,
Flew away those weils towards the no-man’s land…
O my village soil, you know, I have never held
a whip in this hand,
The water’s murmur and the song in birth seeds
I wanted to hear all over your body,
O rains, you khow, I got drenched nightlong
standing alone outside the tent
under lightning,
Never said ‘no’ to anyone,
O poison-tree, your wind has clanked the music of bones in my body,
Gritting my teeth I have endured,
Instead of the barbed wire on the last line of the map
I have planted mysef like a flag,
O autumnal blue sky, you know, even today I have not been able to return my home.
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Bio-Data : SAYED HASMAT JALAL
Sayed Hasmat Jalal was born on 12 July 1957 at the village of Khosbaspur in Murshidabad district in West Bengal.
His father Sayed Abdur Rahman Ferdousi (1904 – 2006) was a freedom-fighter and also a researcher, essayist and writer. Jalal’s eldest brother Syed Mustafa Siraj (1930 – 2012) was an eminent litterateur.
Sayed Hasmat Jalal started writing at a very tender age.On completion of his college studies Jalal joined Indian Air Force. Meanwhile his poetries were being regularly published in all well-known magazines.
While staying in Delhi in late seventies, Jalal was associated with the Bengali poetry movement there.
Because of his transferable service, he travelled almost all over India and came in close contact with the culture of various regions in the country that enriched his literary experiences.
Having left Indian Air Force in the beginning of 1990 Jalal got settled in Kolkata. Later he was associated with newspapers and wrote post-editorial articles regularly on various social, political, national and inter-national issues. Also he participated in many literary seminars and conferences on national and inter-national levels.
His writings in different fields have distinguished him from other contemporary poets. His work has inclinations towards nature and human relationships with social relevance.
Sayed Hasmat Jalal has received Bangla Akademi Award given by Government of West Bengal in 2002. He has also been awarded ‘Bishnu De Purashkar’ and many other awards and felicitations all over India and Bangladesh.
He lives in Kokata.India.