Dr. Saumyajit Acharya
[Dr. Saumyajit Acharya is Indian poet, writer, translator and educator. He is now the Head of the Department of Education at Rampurhat College, Burdwan University. He has nine books in his credits till now. His poems have been translated into English, Jharkhandi and Serbian languages. Some of them have been broadcasted on FM radios Bolivia, South America. He has participated a number of international literary festivals. He is an Executive Member of the International Literary Meet, Managing Editor of Poem Vein International, and Joint Editor of Bahoman journal. He has been conferred numerous prestigious awards. His literary works get frequently published in leading magazines and newspaper across India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Belgium, Australia and America. This talented young writer was awarded at the Argentina Film Festival in 2015 for one of his short film scripts. Films based on his scripts have been screened in other prestigious film festivals like International Open Film Festival (2016) and Model & Movie Film Festival (2016). Presented herewith is an interview with Dr. Acharya, taken by Mahesh Paudyal for The Gorkha Times. ]
Dr. Acharya, greetings! Hope time is treating you very well. You are a poet as well as an educator. Though these two dimensions are interrelated, their ways are markedly different. How do you balance your time and personality between writing and teaching? Which of these works you enjoy more?
Thank you Mr. Paudyal. Warm greetings to you and your fantastic country people. My belief is that time is the most cruel enemy of ours. As a poet, I can also feel it every day, like others. I am fighting with time in this battlefield of life. I am two: one in the outer world, and the other in the inner world. In both the worlds, I am fighting with my one enemy, that is time. Actually, I am many and in every field, I have to fight with time, time and time.
From my childhood days, I wanted to be a torchbearer. I wanted be a writer, a poet. It was my passion, my oxygen to survive. There are a very few people in this blue planet who have the same passion and profession. Although I have a different profession, I enjoy it because this profession is also connected with light, the inner light, i.e. enlightenment. But if you ask me to choose one among them, I select writing. Writing gives me more peace. It is very difficult to balance between the two. I have lost so many short stories under the staffroom table. I have lost so many poetry lines in buses or at the railway platforms. Teaching transformed me into a better coach and a skilled facilitator but it has stolen the silent noon and unknown peddler from me; lines from me. As a poet I feel every day that my days are fast ending…but a lots of work has not been done yet.
You are author of a number of poetry collections. In West Bengal of today, how easy or difficult is it to get recognized as a poet? What are the difficulties?
Poets should not be recognized; poetry should be. In West Bengal as well as in India, poetry is not one of the most eye-catching mediums of art in comparison to any other popular art form. In India, film is the most powerful medium of art. Now-a-days, people are much interested in social media and television programs. Still there are so many poets in West Bengal, as well as India. Most of them are talented. A few of them are self-centered too. Moreover, there are various elocutionists, band performers and experimental artists who are engrossed in this art form. Most of them are trying to innovate something new.
It is always not easy to get recognition. There are many obstacles behind it. It may be lack of communication policies, differences in languages, non-professional publishing strategies, differences of opinion among the various groups of poets and so on. In spite of these, there are huge number of good readers, intellectual thinkers and poets too, who collectively make poetry alive.
You are heir to a glorious literary tradition in Bengal. Bengal has produced great exponents like Rabindra Nath Tagore, Kazi Nazarul Islam, Bankim Chandra Chatopadhyaya and others. Is the new generation equally inspired by these old masters? Or, has it moved away from the tradition, inventing its own forms and content?
They are our legacy. After the era of Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam there were number poets and writers who experimented with the form and contents of Bengali literature. We have been illuminated by poets Jibanananda Das, Arun Mitra, Bishnu Dey, Falguni Roy, Nirendranath Chakraborty, Sunil Gangopadhyay, Sakti Chattapadhyay, Shankha Ghosh, Joy Goshwami, Subodh Sarkar, Shamalkanti Dash, Ranajit Das, Bhaskar Chokroborty and so on. Among writers, there are huge transformations from Mahasweta Devi to Sandipan, Nabarun Bhattacharya and Sirshendu Bandhopadhyay. There are a number of literature movements which have transformed Bengali literature from traditional to the new form. The new generation writers and poets are trying to invent their own forms and contents. They are continuously experimenting.
You have participated in a number of international literary festivals. What does the world outside like to listen from a contemporary Bengali poet? Do they cherish any theme, or they have some specific expectations? Please share your experience.
Theme is not always important. The expectation is always towards some good poems. Which poem is good and which is not may be debatable but in every literary festival we should read some new poems which had not been written earlier and not recited.
You are also a translator. Many of your works have been translated into other languages, while you have translated many works into Bengali from other source. As a translator, how easy or challenging do you find the translation act?
In our country, there are so many extraordinary translators like Maitri Shukla, Subramanian Krishnamoorthy, Rameshwar Shaw, Subimal Basak, Shyamal Bhattacharya, Nani Sur, Amar Bharati, Pratibha Agarwal etc. They have changed the flavor of translated literature. They are our legacy. To me, translation is not merely the translation of a poem or a story, but a culture. Translation is a mirror in which you can see the reflected image, not the real one. It is like an artificial flower that looks real but not the real one. So it is obviously a challenging work. When I have compiled Desh Bidesher Kobita, a collection of poems from various countries I translated. While doing so, I clearly felt the challenge of translation. Actually, translators should have magician’s wings, a mother’s heart and a traveler’s shoes.
You have been a frequent organizer of literary meets in Bengal. In many of them, foreign delegates also come to participate. What is your motif behind all these events?
I believe in a borderless world and I think, there should not confine ourselves to any specific country as poets and writers. There should be a common bridge for all the rivers of the world. I want to hear the song of birds from Nepal in the morning sitting at my window. In return, I can send the sea-wind to your garden. I want to smell the flowers of Sri Lanka while I stroll down my lane in the evening. In return, I can send our raindrops to their rooftops.
In this xenophobic world, literature is one of the ways in which we can celebrate our humanity. Speeches of Gautama Buddha are not only the property of one country but He is for the whole world. Jesus Christ is not only for the Christians but His teachings are for the whole mankind. I believe literature should be open for everyone. So I am always trying break the barriers.
Countries like India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal have a lot of cultural overlaps. Yet, practically not much is being done by the governments to bring our similarities and common literary and cultural assets together. What should we, at non-governmental level, do to bring these countries together culturally?
I align with your views. There should be a common umbrella. I have a dream. We should make an international organization which will work on literature. There should be a common international platform. There should be annual international program where participants from every country can perform. There is a need of number of multilingual translators, skilled organizers, policy makers and sponsors. We are still glorifying West-made Nobel Prize. Why cannot we think about an Eastern Nobel Prize Ceremony?
What are you writing at the moment? What are your plans in the nearest future?
I have been carrying concepts of three novels for the past three years. But due to the lack of time management, I haven’t finished any one of them. Among them one is psychological, the second one a science fiction and the third a work on social issues. They are knocking me every day, every night. But last three years I have cheated them. Every single word of each unwritten novel is weeping now. Can you hear anything? Maybe, yes. Maybe, no. But that is painful to me to stop them more. As soon as possible, I have to write them all.