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Aug 26 2018

Gabriel Rosenstock & Debiprasad Mukherjee: Mural World

Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World - The Culturium
Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World.
Photograph: © Debiprasad Mukherjee

Metonymic moments

looking / not looking
hearing / not hearing—
look now

féachaint / gan féachaint
éisteacht / gan éisteacht—
féach anois

Gabriel Rosenstock is the author/translator of over 150 books, including 13 volumes of poetry and a volume of haiku, mostly in Gaelic. Prose work includes fiction, essays in The Irish Times, radio plays and travel writing. He has given readings and performances in Europe, USA, India, Japan and Australia and is a member of Aosdána (Irish Academy of Arts & Letters). Broken Angels is the fourth in an ongoing series of ekphrastic tanka books published by Cross-Cultural Communications, New York, and available as a free e-book on the EDOCR platform.

Debiprasad Mukherjee is an independent documentary photographer based in Kolkata, India. He graduated in Electrical Engineering and completed his postgraduate in Business Management. His strong passion for documentary photography and photojournalism has led him to travel to various countries like Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, UAE, Iraq, Bangladesh, USA and the UK.

In this week’s guest post for The Culturium, Gabriel and Debiprasad collaborate once again to create a beautiful fusion of visual art and versification, whereby the inner lives of people from diverse creeds and cultures are reflected within the painted stories on the murals of our towns and cities across the globe.

Life is always like a painting—you draw, you erase … Historically, people used painting as an abstract expression of moments lived. Paintings on walls across the globe continue to be the portraiture of people’s social structures, the mirrors which reflect their own stories, the impression of their own inner feelings.

Snapshots of various emotions—love and hate, failures and successes, ups and downs, dreams and nightmares—all culminate to evolve into a beautiful story, maybe knowingly, maybe unknowingly. Yet the painter remains anonymous, the faces remain unknown. Different pictures emanate different tunes, which mingle into a single music called life.

Life is nothing but a bouquet of moments and these murals around the world are nothing but snapshots of some of these precious times. People do not paint a wall; they paint their lives. They write their personal diaries on the wall, which they cannot say in words, to the entire world.
—Debiprasad Mukherjee

Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World - The Culturium
Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World.
Photograph: © Debiprasad Mukherjee

it’s a world of shutters
and yet …
birds sing

is domhan comhlaí é
ina dhiaidh sin is uile …
canann éin

Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World - The Culturium
Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World.
Photograph: © Debiprasad Mukherjee

how many mothers
have I had—
oh, dear mothers!

an mó máthair
a bhí agam—
ó, a mháithríní!

Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World - The Culturium
Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World.
Photograph: © Debiprasad Mukherjee

dreams of our youth …
scraps and bundles
on nameless streets

aislingí ár n-óige
ina gclimíní …
sráideanna gan ainm

Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World - The Culturium
Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World.
Photograph: © Debiprasad Mukherjee

this city!
just look at them all—
peacocks

an chathair seo!
féach orthu go léir—
péacóga

Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World - The Culturium
Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World.
Photograph: © Debiprasad Mukherjee

entangled mysteries
of the universe …
a beard

mistéirí aimhréidhe
na cruinne …
féasóg

Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World - The Culturium
Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World.
Photograph: © Debiprasad Mukherjee

what do they know
do they know anything—
those waiting to be born

cad tá ar eolas acu
an eol dóibh faic—
iad siúd nár saolaíodh fós

Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World - The Culturium
Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World.
Photograph: © Debiprasad Mukherjee

bless us, o Lord
and these
Thy gifts

beannaigh sinn, a Thiarna
beannaigh ár mbia
is ár ndeoch

Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World - The Culturium
Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World.
Photograph: © Debiprasad Mukherjee

evening …
the loneliness
of our fading footsteps

tráthnóna …
uaigneas ár gcoiscéimeanna féin
ag dul i léig

Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World - The Culturium
Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World.
Photograph: © Debiprasad Mukherjee

face of a stranger …
a stranger within
awakes

aghaidh strainséara …
dúisítear strainséir
istigh

Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World - The Culturium
Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World.
Photograph: © Debiprasad Mukherjee

pedestrians …
all have a tryst
with destiny

coisithe …
coinne acu go léir
leis an gcinniúint

Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World - The Culturium
Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World.
Photograph: © Debiprasad Mukherjee

washed up
from some boundless ocean …
street child

tagtha i dtír
ó aigéan éigin gan chríoch …
páiste sráide

Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World - The Culturium
Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World.
Photograph: © Debiprasad Mukherjee

where his eyelashes fell
a tea plant sprung up …
Bodhidharma

san áit ar thit a chuid fabhraí
d’eascair planda tae …
Bodhidharma

Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World - The Culturium
Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World.
Photograph: © Debiprasad Mukherjee

looking for the face he had
before the world was made …
still looking

sa tóir ar a chuntanós
sularbh ann don domhan …
fós á lorg

Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World - The Culturium
Debiprasad Mukherjee, Mural World.
Photograph: © Debiprasad Mukherjee

side street …
blood of a sacrificed goat
begins to congeal

taobhshráid …
fuil an ghabhair íobartha
ag téachtadh

Post Notes

  • Debiprasad Mukherjee’s website
  • Gabriel Rosenstock’s blog
  • Masood Hussain & Gabriel Rosenstock: Love Letter to Kashmir
  • Kon Markogiannis, Gabriel Rosenstock & Sarah Thilykou: Angelic Flights
  • Jason Symes & Gabriel Rosenstock: Rare Times
  • Gabriel Rosenstock: To Thine Own Self Be True
  • Andy Richter: Serpent in the Wilderness
  • Ditmar Bollaert: Arunachala Pradakshina
  • Gabriel Rosenstock & Ron Rosenstock: Haiku Enlightenment
  • Archana Bahadur Zutshi: Poetic Candour
  • Odilon Redon & Gabriel Rosenstock: Every Night I Send You Flowers
  • Gabriel Rosenstock & Ron Rosenstock: Illumination

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Written by Gabriel Rosenstock · Categorized: Literature, Visual Arts · Tagged: debiprasad mukherjee, gabriel rosenstock, guest post, haiku, indian, irish, mural world, photography, poetry

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