Born in the Bolangir town of Odisha state on 15.08.1951 poet Soubhagyabanta Maharana started writing poetry from the year 1975. He is a post Graduate in History from Sambalpur University, Odisha. Mr. Maharana is basically a bilingual poet of Odia and English. Several poems of him have been published in the leading Oriya magazines , MUSE INDIA ejournal , POETRY FIRST , Poetry Chronicle, Indian Literature ,Telegraph weekly magazine, The Caravan, The Eastern Times of Odisha and A Posy of Poesy , Poets’ Paradise , The Poetic Bliss , Fancy Realm and Chants of Peace of Guntur Literary Festival.
SHADOWS OF HISTORY
History is seldom a pretence of events
But a document of passing realities
Soaked with blood, love and bravery
To recount episodes of war and peace
With unification and disintegration
Of far-flung empires in stone inscriptions.
From the fossils of history
Emerge unforeseen matters, baffled ideas
To see the light of culture and science
Amid darkness of disaster
Waiting in the cosy corner of museum.
History is sometimes shadowed
By banes of cruel hands like testing saline blood
Smeared on the sword in battle-field.
It creates shadow of ruffled doubts
Generating furore or turmoil
In the anarchy of a nation like tremors.
Ill-fated history seldom reveals true love
Encircling the dilapidated harem
To unravel the mysteries of orgies of Maharaja.
Unpacified souls of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Resound with heavy sighs and tearful eyes
In the whispering nuclear sky
To recollect life in death’s paradise
With a mission to freshen lost memory.
Civilisation
The cute and candid time
in its endless sojourn
to decipher the stressful events
may be ungrateful sometimes
out of sheer arrogance
cannot pierce the heart absolutely
of a man craving to be civilized.
The transparency of naivety
the depth of affability
will seldom find its inner spirit
in the opaque personality of a man
being far from the light of civilization.
Then what is civilization
to be proud of ingeniously
despite its mundane
and momentary pleasures
amid the dripping of blood
to smear with terrorism and corruption?
Still its other side
greatly allures the avaricious man
in the conscious or subconscious
channel of existence
as if an insect is enchanted blindly
towards the beautiful flame
of furious fire
to be devoured atom by atom.
Bite Me Oh, Reality!
When reality bites me with audacity
Tangled with tension and mal administration
I stumble down at once
On the half way of my journey
Surrendering my primordial ego
Being suffocated by unjust ethics.
When freedom knocks at door
Should I reveal my shackles of slavery
Which have engulfed me till today
Amid murky darkness of ignorance
To mock at the icy sun?
Our democracy has become a mockery
To frown upon the Ahimsa of Gandhi
When his three loving monkeys
Shed tears with heavy heart
Seeing degradation of man and society.
Surrounded by chaos of isms
My primal empathy searching for a flicker of light
Amidst the encircling gloom of darkness
Bewails over inability from time to time.
The dark destiny of democracy
Has swindled and betrayed us
Dragging us to the nadir of morality
To worship the greedy god of scam and corruption
With penchant of perverted emotion.