Mrityunjay Kumar Singh, a senior IPS officer of the West Bengal cadre, has successfully traversed and linked together the paths of creative writing, literature, music and theatre. Being an ingenious and multifaceted personality, he has transliterated and trans-created Kalidas's Meghdoot into English and Hindi. Apart from this, he has two volumes of poetry to his credit.
Mrityunjay is an accomplished writer of lyrics and has contributed to Rituparno Ghosh’s Antarmahal, and other films like Via Darjeeling, Dharm and more. Mrityunjay has also lent his voice to a soulful number in Rituparno Ghosh’s film Chokher Bali. Moreover, he has conceptualised and scripted the Bhojpuri musical dance drama Bidesiya. He has also conceptualised and staged Shikandini at the Festival of India in Jakarta. Recently, he has penned and staged Dev-Sabha, a satire on the Council of Gods gathered to decide the fate of those souls that have died untimely deaths because of sexual and other violence. His cultural acumen can also be gauged through his tenure as Director, Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center, Jakarta and Indonesia.
(1) FOG
Gliding over the dusty foliage
Camouflaging
A polluted river
Swinging beneath a bridge
She wraps the nudity
Of a land
That will soon be exposed
To a ravenous light.
(2) Me and You
Do you know
With which ray of the sun
Does the dawn arrive?
Or,
With which hue of darkness
Does the night descend?
Life oscillates
Between the two odd ends
We choose our hue
And live our due,
Each of us - me and you.
(3) I Seek Thee
Perched in the fissure
Of Time and timelessness,
Ripped and minced
By the sharp blades
Of relevance
Nowhere to flee,
I seek thee!
Suspended in the breeze
With the wind that doesn't blow
And space that hangs low
with blue eyed reverence,
A clam oozes free
I feel thee!
Competing to muffle the sounds of sound
In the ocean of species cacophony abound
Like a solitary bird
Humming a reverie,
I sing thee!
Devoid of seed and soil
On the edges of fertility
Bearing rotten fruits of decay
Bored with barren envy,
A bald tree,
I beseech thee!
With the spilled water of cascading descending fountain
And left behind shadow
Of the growing mountain
I search and see
The expanse of thee!
(4) Love
The only thing
I may share with you
Is suffering
Or
May be, Love?
Love
That defined
Pangs of loss
Yet consumed the time
Needed to suffer
The misery!
Love
That swept across
Like a gush of colours
Swirling
Amidst breeze of errors!
Love
That muddled
My existence
So much
With pieces of sunderance
Suffering
Became so much easier.
So, do I suffer
Because I love,
Or, do I love
Because I suffer?
(5) The Buzz
Rancour, broil, shivers,
The morning drops
From a drooping
Serrated tip of a palm tree
Silently suffering
A totalitarian smirk
Of smoggy haze
Allowing as much air
As to keep the leaves gasping
Cacophonous rasping
Converging
To create a muzzy migraine
While the first ray
Grates past
With a nudging heat
Of a warm sensation;
I grab understanding
Like a lazy, long analysis
Ending
In series of enigma.
The buzz continues,
The migraine envelops.