A poet writes poetry. He does not.
Does poetry spring from emotion? Or from emptiness? Before Mr. Sougata Pal could fully grasp any of this, under the pretext of seeking refuge in seclusion, his poems took physical form in words. Some say he is sensitive; others claim he is devoid of feeling. But fact is that, Sougata Is rewarded as Best Bengali lyricist for the song “Amake Ador name deko” by Akshardhara Publication on 10th April 2026 In Kolkata when his 7th book “je chayalekh-e se morsumi” is published with a grand ceremony.Few other individual books were published in this special event and some Excellence Awards were given for special contributions in various fields of literature and creativity. The presence of every writer, poet, artist and guest took the event to a unique height.
Although born in North Kolkata, the sentiments that swirl through Mr. Pal’s memory—shaped by twenty-seven years spent living outside West Bengal—still compel him to write Bengali poetry today. At his very roots flows the breeze of North Kolkata’s winding alleys. Before he could turn away from the “Tagor” (Crape Jasmine) plant he had personally planted in the city’s cement-hardened soil—or from the sparrows taking refuge in the prickly pear cactus—Mr. Sougata Pal found himself breathing the air of India’s diverse and peripheral regions: Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan, Odissa and West Bengal. Consequently, as he breathes in these varied atmospheres, his lungs occasionally grow heavy—sometimes for a reason, sometimes for none at all. Mr. Sougata Pal’s intimate association with poetry began at the tables of the 1990s-era Coffee House and within the precincts of his college campus. Although his work was frequently published in various Little Magazines across the bengal during that period, he subsequently spent nearly fifteen years in obscurity—a self-imposed exile from poetry spent grappling with the complex, often arduous mathematics of earning a livelihood. Professionally, amidst the mechanical monotony of engineering, countless records of human relationships were—quite involuntarily—lost by him. From Ahiritola to Jaisalmer, he wanders through the touch-memories of bygone springs, particularly as the streetlights begin to glow on a mist-laden evening.
There is a vibration in every word. That vibration is eternal. Human is trying to write down the hereditary feelings of the human hand that left its imprint inside the cave millions of years ago. His genetic existence wants to preserve the survival of those millions of years of anger, sorrow, pride, disappointment, joy, happiness, etc. in a relentless effort. One form of this is his shadow-writing created by words. Daily life is an inevitable sonnet of mortal man, but Mr. Sougata Pal’s poetic practice for the past three decades has been to create it. Writing poetry is not his profession, but it has been an invisible illusion that has bound him for a lifetime. He has lost his desire to become a famous poet on the winding path of time, from the palace of Udaipur to the sea beach of Digha. He has left his desire to become a poet in the red dust of Lanjigarh or Barbil on the outskirts of Odisha. The air of his youth has returned from the cement factories of Karnataka and Maharashtra to some shady village in Amethi, Uttar Pradesh.
There was a Cactus (mansa) tree next to his hut. When the sparrows played on the branches of that tree, their shadows would fly. When the two elder sisters went to school, he would compose poems with their shadows while his mother slept. The summer afternoons were small, lonely, floating—these days they seem exactly the same. But the red floor and the sparrows are gone. He has left his familiar city and crossed Mumbai, Chandigarh, Delhi, Nagpur, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Indore, Bhopal, Bhilai and many other cities. Yet when he wants to return to the city of Kolkata that he left behind, he can’t see existency of his past anywhere. Memories remain in his brain, he recognizes it, but he doesn’t feel like it’s his. Today, in this changed environment, he’s looking for those old faces every day.
Until the type of chin bone of the man who used to drill holes in stone and make ornaments in Lothal four and a half thousand years ago is matched by some joyful DNA, he will search for his own familiar face with this deep anarchy and loneliness. Human has no peace until then. Doubt has become bigger than dependence now. Our brains are still coded in survival mode in the race of evolution. Like Stone Age hunters, we are jumping from one dangerous situation to another job to escape from violent surroundings. This trauma, this nomadic profession, broken by the remnants of time, is reflected in Mr. Sougata Pal’s poetry.
This evolutionary history of survival is so true that now we no longer see stars through the gaps of the moments but engaged with the appearing notifications on the Android screen. Thanks to the vast expansion of digital technology and the connective power of social media, he eventually found a platform to re-emerge as a poet, buoyed by the encouragement of friends. Thoughts that had once taken shape in words within the tiny chambers of his mind—often scribbled on discarded scraps of paper—were subsequently organized and curated on a Facebook page titled ‘Ekhon Kobitay’ (https://www.facebook.com/Ekhonkobitay). It is there that his reconnection with readers continues, day after day. The remainder represent a diverse array of thoughts, moods, and stylistic experiments from various moments in time—pieces that are entirely fresh and previously unpublished.
Be that as it may, the interplay of light and shadow—the very geometry of illumination and shade—that inhabits the dwelling places of these nascent poems serves as a signifier of his own existential mechanics. They constitute the sustenance for the present moment, poised between the ghosts of the past and the uncertainties of the future. They embody the agnostic vision of a philosophical outlook—a space where the subject matter remains detached and impersonal, transcending the confines of the individual self. A person without a subject becomes irrelevant. From faded letterboxes to Android chatboxes, Mr Sougata Pal moves forward in the hope that one day, the “aliens” of this new generation will prove even love itself—much like a mathematical theorem. It is for this very reason—to bind within covers those words he had once lost and then rediscovered—that this book has come into being. He remains deeply grateful to the reader for their close engagement with these verses—for appreciating their relevance and for sharing in the experience of their transcendence.It feels as though he does not write poetry; rather, poetry itself keeps writing him—all his life long.
Congratulations, Sougata, on giving voice to the stories we live. His words continue to bind our community together.