Tirthankar’s poem features a young sapling dancing near an ancient tree, symbolising growth, observation, and quiet mentorship across generations, resembling an old man, exclusively for Different Truths.
A sapling grows near the steps, not far from a tree, knotty and gnarled with age, observes its childish ecstasy. The sapling grows, uncared for, like a kitten at play near its mother, the old tree watches night and day. It lowers its hoary boughs and blesses and sees it grow. Happy and unruffled by the gathering storm the tree is like the old man of a musty old-age hom
Picture design by Anumita Roy, Different Truths
Tirthankar Das Purkayastha (b. 1956) is a Professor of English (retired) at Vidyasagar University, West Bengal, India. He has so far published three books of poetry in Bengali and many scholarly articles in academic journals. His translations of poems by Sunil Gangopadhyay have been published, with the poet’s approval, in South Asian Review and Indian Literature, a Sahitya Akademi journal. He has been regularly publishing poetry in all the leading journals of West Bengal.
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