To Some Foreign News Reporters
Abul Hossain, (translated by Abid Anwar)
Mr. Porter, how to convey my thanks to you!
You hurried
from far, across continents and oceans,
from the States to this small poor land
just for news.
How nice are your newspapers
I can't but applaud this effort of yours.
From high above the sky,
from the hired chopper,
you yourself looked down below
at the turbid flood devouring mile after mile;
when you landed, you rushed
to send wires,
wires after wires,
how keen those narrations were
added with pictures,
all those heart-rending photos you took!
You have vision, Mr. Porter,
how forceful a pen you wield,
as if from the very pages of papers
the flood would swallow us
with its wide-open mouth.
But nothing more could you see in this land?
Madam La Pierre
How tolerant could you be?
From the glittery world of Paris you flew,
then rushed about three hundred miles
from Dhaka in a shiny car,
crossing all those bright-looking ferries,
often on foot, sometimes riding a rickety rickshaw
(in the mud and dust how wretched
your bright red jeans had been),
starved a full night, one-and-a-half day
(took a few bananas, two to three Cokes,
and three cups of tepid tea),
ignoring mosquito bites at night
the pictures of famine you snapped
from every nook and corner of Kurigram
could make us all mute and dumb,
and so did your clear, bold and neutral prose.
How wonderfully fine was that report!
Those skeletal, naked and bloated corpses
looked quite harrowing in the pages of Le Monde
But nothing more could you see in this land?
Senor Gourdini, whence you came,
Madrid or Rome?
Your face covered with beard, a leather jacket
and high boots did you say?
Maybe a tourist you are
That notebook in hand marked you right.
Have you no fear?
The riot has emptied all villages and towns
Nooks and corners are full of corpses,
alarmed people are vacating their homes
with their hands broken, legs chopped,
bandages on heads;
and amidst that scene you
point by point do so discourse
with workers of,Anjuman-i-Mahfil-Islam,
from a Red Cross car you stepped
towards the streets and lanes
all soaked with blood and tears,
moved around the burnt houses, desolate shops.
The reports you sent to your paper
the whole country did read and cry:
For shame!
How brutal and barbaric!
But Mr. Gourdini,
Nothing more did you see in this land?
Abul Hossain is a Bangladeshi poet and travel writer. Among his many awards are the Bangla Academy Award for poetry and the Ekushey Padak..
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