Masudul Hoq (1968)was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He has a PhD in Aesthetics under Professor Hayat Mamud at Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is a contemporary Bengali poet,short story writer,translator and researcher. His previous published work includes short stories Tamakbari(1999), The poems Dhonimoy Palok(2000) , Dhadhashil Chaya which translated version is Shadow of Illusion(2005) and Jonmandher Swapna which translated version is Blind Man’s Dream (2010),translated by Kelly J. Copeland. Masudul Hoq also translated T.S. Eliot’s poem , Four Quartets(2012), Allen Ginsburg’s poem, Howl(2018), from English to Bengali. In the late 1990’s for 3 years he worked under a research fellowship at The Bangla Academy. Bangla Academy has published his two research books. His poems have been published in Chinese, Romanian ,Mandarin, Azarbaijanese, Turkish, Nepali and Spanish languages. At present he is a Professor of Philosophy in a government college, Bangladesh.

Poems by Masudul Hoq

1. A New Spell on Charyapada (one)

Human body is an unknown tree inside flesh and blood 

It spreads five sense organs of different missions 

Beneath it, there lies eternity itself.

Only the restless mind stays awake

Amongst eternal sorrows and happiness.

Luipa realizes the fact in meditation

That Death attracts him more than Life!

2. A New Spell on Charyapada (three)

The vintner girl surrounds herself

Squeezing the wine slowly.

There are sixty-four arts and crafts in the body

The fiances become intoxicated in it

Thinking of the moon on the tenth day as a sign of love-making 

They display their valiance of manhood in sixty-six sectors.

Tempted, humans run after immortality

And become slaves to wine in small jugs, and vessels.

 Birupa thinks so while sitting in meditation 

Happiness stands for a woman 

And she lies in infatuation!

3. A New  Spell on Charyapada(five)

Human beings are an illusory tree

 It keeps flowing in the stream of Styx.

 An irresistible trap lies between the shores of illusion 

 In between keeps awake the storm of waves 

The solution of ferrying remains within the body. 

If the illusory tree is driven away in the pursuit of enlightenment 

The fabrics of light of knowledge

will help Bard to build a bridge across the river.

 The righteous do not move either left or right

They keep walking in the middle for thousands of years.

4. A New  Spell on Charyapada(six)

 Humans are held  in with deer-like frivolity 

In a desperately-desired body

As if the deer is a foe to her own flesh!

 Eternity is a weird hunter

 Which surrounds the body with the spell of destruction.

Alongside desire, there is beauty in the body

To a flesh-eater, the flesh of a deer still equates to the charms of a woman

As it was in ancient times.

 Vusuku knows if human senses find 

 the spirit 

They are sure to reach the Eden.

 But the material world is a bond of illusion 

And the body goes after the reproduction.

 Even in a thousand years of pursuit of knowledge 

I could not find the nonchalant light!

5. A New  Spell on Charyapada(seven)

Obstructed by the illusion of the moon and the sun,

The poet Kanu happens to be so weary;

I ponder why he remains so nonchalant in an infinite glory 

In a world full of greed.

 Illusion-oratory and soul are all three the same in the mundane world;

Why the body suddenly becomes detached by the eclipse of bodily enemies.

Those who came abandon the body behind 

And there is none to leave us.

They still tend to go to the Paradise beyond space and time 

I am sure it’s Kanui who can give one the real hints.

(Translated into English by Niranjan Roy)