Tridib Dastidar was recognized as a powerful and disturbing new voice in Bangladeshi poetry well before his untimely death.

Terror

Terror is hatching an egg,
the unwanted child’s eyes are shut
both inside and out.
When it opens its eyes
in a future world
it’ll find its arms and legs are hostage
to a crazy creature called Man.
The skies are helpless,
the dream pathways are no longer safe,
even on the way to school, guardians are strangely anxious,
the letters of the alphabet
are being carried to hospital on stretchers,
the counter-revolutionary’s ransom demand
at the other end of the phone line,
and the image of a bullet on banknotes.

Terror is hatching an egg,
inside it too is the tremor of wings,
it’s as if the ceaseless curses of bestiality
were directed at the world, at life.

– Translated by Hamid Bhuiyan