Sukumar Barua, rhymester of Bangladesh, winner of Ekushey Padak has passed away at age 84 in Chittagong. His honors include the Bangla Academy Award, the Ekushey Padak, the Bangladesh Shishu Academy Literary Award, the Agrani Bank Children’s Literature Honor, and the Alaol Children’s Literature Award.

In his memory, we present three of his poems, rendered in English translation, with the Bangla original below.

Bhejal / Contaminated
Everything is contaminated.
Food. Medicine.
Even the things we love.

It travels freely—
from Delhi to Dhaka,
from London to Tokyo to Venice.

How much of this contamination
has seeped into people themselves?
White in a moment,
black in the next—
and suddenly, strangely, green.

Even hatred is impure;
otherwise how could enemies
make peace so easily?
Even affection is mixed—
sweet words,
followed by a slap, a kick.

I see it in my writing too.
The ink is tainted.
The pen feels cold.
So many borrowed, broken languages
have piled up
inside Bengali itself.

We eat crops grown on poisoned soil,
and the poison climbs into the mind.
Otherwise, who would spend
an entire lifetime
calculating mistakes?

It’s not just life that’s corrupted—
death is too.
Why else do we perform rituals
for those we call heavenly?

This planet itself will one day
be contaminated
by its ties to other worlds.
I am drowning in grief for what is pure,
my chest overflowing,
crying for what we’ve lost.

In an interview with Prothom Alo in 2023, Barua recalled his earliest memories:
It was 1943. On one side there was the thunder of war; on the other, famine. Scarcity was everywhere. Sukumar was five years old at the time. His father, Sarbananda Barua, was a simple man. Poverty had overwhelmed him. What could he feed his helpless little son? One day he sold the only bucket the household had and brought home some broken rice. Eating the boiled rice filled their stomachs. After that, sometimes it was wild leafy greens, sometimes the soft core of a banana tree. That was how the days passed. Then one day Sarbananda went out carrying a machete. Little Sukumar wondered, What will Father bring today? He waited. The midday sun faded, afternoon passed, evening turned into night. Days, weeks, months, years went by. His father never returned. Sukumar’s mother, Kiran Bala, would often say, “Where did that man go, leaving with a machete in his hand?” Recalling the story, Sukumar said, “This happened eighty years ago. In that time, so much has happened in the life of the nation and in my own life. In 1947, two countries were born in the subcontinent. Through a world-shaking war of liberation, Bangladesh came into being. And my own life, too, did not stand still.”

The Prothom Alo report continues: After his father disappeared, his mother Kiran Bala took him to her brother’s place in North Gujrat. They were very poor too. His uncle was a police constable, and the whole family survived on the one and a half taka he earned. Sukumar finished first grade there, but because of poverty he couldn’t stay long. His mother then sent him to a Buddhist monastery, where there was food, schooling, and a place to stay. But he didn’t last long there either. Talking about those days, Sukumar broke down in tears: “The head monk was very harsh. He would beat us over the smallest things. One day, for a tiny mistake, he hit me so badly that my head split open.” Raising his hand to his head, he said, “The scar is still there.” Unable to bear the beatings, third-grader Sukumar went back to his mother. She told him firmly, “If they come to take you back to the monastery, tell them: I’d rather die of hunger than go back.”

ভেজাল
খাদ্যে ভেজাল পথ্যে ভেজাল
ভেজাল শখের জিনিসে,
চলছে ভেজাল দিল্লি-ঢাকা
বিলেত-জাপান-ভিনিসে।
ভেজাল কত রইল মিশে
মানুষজনের চরিত্রে,
অমনি শাদা, অমনি কালো,
অমনি কেন হরিৎ-রে ?
হিংসাতেও ভেজাল থাকে
নইলে আবার মিলে যে,
স্নেহের ভেজাল ধরতে পারি
কানমলা-চড় কিলে যে।

লিখতে দেখি ভেজাল কালি !
কলম হল ঠাণ্ডারে,
হায় রে কত ভাষার ভেজাল
বঙ্গভাষার ভাণ্ডারে।
ভেজাল সারের ফসল খেয়ে
ঢুকছে ভেজাল মস্তকে,
নইলে সারা জীবন ধরে
ভুলের হিসাব কষত কে ?
জীবন শুধু ভেজাল নহে
ভেজাল থাকে মরণে,
নইলে কেন অর্ঘ্য দেব
স্বর্গবাসীর স্মরণে ?
ভেজাল হবে এই পৃথিবী
অন্য গ্রহের বন্ধনে,
খাঁটির শোকে মরছি আমি
বুক ভাসিয়ে ক্রন্দনে।