EDITOR’S NOTE

The job of editing Sugata’s writings was difficult, yet rewarding. His writings are so numerous and diverse in nature that selection was a stupendous task. The rich musical and verbal quality of his works was an allurement for inclusion of them all. With great pain and disappointment I had to leave out majority of his works. In future they may see the light of day.

The reward of going through Sugata’s writings, however, amply compensated my labour. A quality of Sugata that struck me most can best be described as a kind of semi-nomadic commitment- a commitment without any material attachment, a flight that finds no alighting point. His is not an eagle’s flight that instills fear into its victims. Rather it is the flight of an albatross skimming the waves of a turbulent sea.

I could not however help feeling a unique trait in Sugata. Apart from being a poet of rare literary genius, he is a mathematician and philosopher of a very high order too. As he himself says, “Isolation is a human fallacy, which is only a very rough approximation of universal complexity. Humans fail to realize that complexity and thus chaos, is a foundational unit of existence”. As a proof of his own hypothesis, Sugata, when situation demanded, unhesitatingly coined new words like ‘dipsy dop’ or ‘Rilly-rallied’.

The second selection of Sugata’s writings is before you. The writings have been arranged in a chronological order, except the last one. They are divided into three sections Poetry, Prose and Song. All his writings are in a finished state. However, a few titles have been added where Sugata himself did not.

It is hoped that as in the case of his earlier posthumous collection- “an orphean lute”, readers also will warmly greet this one.

I am grateful to Anima Biswas and to Adhir Biswas for coming forward to publish the book from their renowned house. I express my sincere gratitude to Rabi Chakraborty for his invaluable guidance. All- may be unknown to me- who have taken part in the publication of this book deservedly earn my praise. I declare my heartfelt gratitude to Nabarun Bhattacharya for his scintillating foreword. It will help coming poets to courageously raise their ‘new’ voice.

The rest is best left to readers.

Dilip Ghosh
Kolkata
26.01.2010