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Roundabout: A date with a physician who would be a poet’s poet
Strap: Assamese poet Nilim Kumar is the delight of translators across languages and now two fresh books are out in English and Punjabi Physician heal thyself: This oft-quoted Latin quote is commonly attributed to Greek healer Hippocrates and remains, till date, the philosophical belief
Strap: Assamese poet Nilim Kumar is the delight of translators across languages and now two fresh books are out in English and Punjabi
Physician heal thyself: This oft-quoted Latin quote is commonly attributed to Greek healer Hippocrates and remains, till date, the philosophical belief. Another belief is that Jesus quoted these words, which most of us repeat in varied contexts, in the Bible.
Well, one harks back to the phrase now in the context of a physician who indeed has come a long way healing himself at every step, but with poetry. The reference indeed is to the prolific poet of the North-East, Nilim Kumar. And it would not be amiss to say that he carries in his soul a little bit of Jesus and a little bit of Hippocrates as he journeys through life and poetry.
A people’s poet, Kumar enjoys immense popularity and an enviable following on social media for his soulful poetry celebrating nature, love and life with poetic abandon — but often runs into controversies with the intolerant having court cases slapped on him and even sending out death threats. But as a person possessed with muse, there is no stopping him even if it meant giving up his government job as an Ayurvedic doctor, which brought him frequent punishment transfers and more. When asked to comment on his poetry, he replies: “I am not done with poetry yet. How do I say anything without a sense of ending?”
The literary festival in the autonomous territory of Kokrajhar in Assam made the date with this phenomenal poet who has published 17 volumes of poetry in the language that he was born — translations for which are available in French, English and several Indian languages. His is a unique tradition of poetry and he believes that poetry comes at its will. And when it does come, it is a prayer fulfilled for the poet. His persona is lovable as he remains rooted to the earth and has not lost his sense of wonder and meets fellow writers with warmth and appreciation.
Kumar stands tall, this gentle poet with a bandana around his head and an innocent intensity that travels through his poetry into his persona — endearing him to his readers, yet unwittingly raising storms mostly at odds with the establishment.
Born in a small town of Pathshala in the Barpeta district of Assam, he grew up in the pristine greens of his valley in a joint family. Yet he was very alone, more so when his mother passed away young. Nature and words came to keep him company and unconsciously he became a precocious poet who was to cry out: “Mother, carry me again in your womb”. It was poetry that caressed the motherless boy. Yet the poetic talent was not acceptable to his father so he created a new name for himself, the one we know him by and continued to write and publish.
A traumatic childhood and alienation from the orthodox order turned him into a rebel who found his peace in thoughts and words with his innocence and zest for life intact.
Poems that survive death
The book in hand, ‘I ‘M Your Poet’, translated from Assamese into English by poet-publisher Dibyajyoti Sarma of the Red River fame is a collection of select poems by Kumar, a treasure that one may return to time and again. Jnanpith-winning Goan writer Damodar Manzo says about the ouvre of this poet: “For Nilim Kumar, a poem is ‘a death born when stones embrace each other’”. K Satchidanandan, the celebrated Malayali poet adds, “Nilim Kumar is a poet of love and loss, of myth and legend, of poems that survive, of earth, heaven, hell and beyond”. A little sampler here on his poem ‘The Poet’:
One morning
a man
went to the seashore
and started to walk
on the waves
everyone thought
he would now drown
but he kept going
and the sea was ecstatic
Poet Nabina Das in her introduction to the poems deftly translated by Sarma says: “Reading Nilim Kumar’s poetry in Assam is not only a habit, but a compulsion. For many readers it is a passion, and a heady one at that. A medical doctor… his verse seems to tap on the nerves of his readers in a fitting way as his fingers do on his patients’ pulse”.
His poems travel to Punjabi
Indeed his verses did a rapid rap-a-tap on the pulse of Punjabi poet and translator Jagdeep Sidhu and have reached Punjabi readers. Sidhu had read some of his poems translated into Hindi and found them captivating: “When I got an invitation to Kokrajhar last year, I was excited and more so because Kumar was to recite in the same session that I was allotted”.
However, disappointment followed as the precious poet was sick and could not attend the festival. “On my return to Chandigarh, I wrote to him that I could translate him into Punjabi from Hindi and was thrilled when he agreed and came here when the book was released by Surjit Patar”.
So, the Pathshala poet is now available even to readers of Punjabi in a neat collection titled ‘Kavi footpath te chal riha hai’ by the Caliber Publication, Patiala. An apt title indeed for the poet who is a familiar sight on the footpaths of his beloved Guwahati, where he now lives.
