History

Ancestor bones are discovered

Wherever dug


This is Teeth.

This has chewed down an age.

It has bitten Time to dust and repaired a house-wall.


This is Shin-bone.

A monk in a village invokes for peace

Blowing this with his mouth

During uneasy hours,

A procession passes through the town

Crying slogans

Of “Long Live”

Of “Down With”

While he is still blowing


The news of someone hacking time’s head to death

Is published in the news-magazine

The very next day


And this is spine,

Folk-story

For descendants wearing bamboo-spines


Don’t know what bone is this.

It’s broken so bluntly

Looks like it split

As it fell into the pit of some evil design


This skull

Wearing a fatal cut-mark of a khukuri

Was grounded under


Intellectuals talk of analyzing history threadbare,

I dug up in the patio at the front

Only to uncover my own placental lump


I think I am digger

Who knows no digging!

                                                                                -Translated by Bhupendra Subba

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Manoj Bogati lives in Gangtok. He published "Bimbagosti" in 2008. He recently received the Yuva Sahitya Akademi Puraskar- 2013 during a programme held at Srimal Shankardev Kala Shetra Auditorium, Panjabari, Guwahati.