The Shadow Catcher

A hauntingly whimsical translation of Sukumar Ray’s “Chhayabaji” titled “The Shadow Catcher”, blending absurdist poetry with espionage allegory. A tale where poetry meets secret dossiers, and shadows whisper truths.

Here I am sharing yet another translation of Shukumar Roy‘s poem. This time I share Chhayabaji. and I call it ‘The Shadow Catcher.’

The Shadow Catcher

This is not an absurd rhyme but only the truth as pure and fine,

Wrestling shadows has inflicted upon me

A severely painful spine.

Shadow catching – yes you heard it right!

That is my lonesome pride,

But, did you not know about it

Before this comical outcry?

From a sunlit shadow to that of a moonlit log,

I stock up a diverse catalogue.

To which I often add,

Fresh dawn shadows

Soaked in dew,

And summer-dried shadows

With a special sunny hue.

While the kites traverse high through the midday sky,

I set a trap for the shadows they cast

And cage those in as soon as they fly past.

I have even trapped many a unique shadow

From a heron to that of a crow,

And I have chased the shadow of a thinly-spread cloud,

Which left an insipid taste in my mouth!

Nobody knows anything about my shadow chasing,

Nobody understands anything about my shadow trapping.

Nobody pursues shadows like me,

For their moments of short-lived ecstasy.

Mistaken you are by a tree’s quiet shadow,

Which you think sleeps still on the meadow?

Ask me for the real thing and I will tell you my reckoning.

When ignored by all and in moments of out of sight,

The shadow of a tree flutters from left to right!

And that is the time when I creep up from behind,

And trap the shadow in my cage uptight.

Lean tree shadows, hollow tree shadows

Or even shadows deep as coal,

All of these pale in contrast

To the shadow of the tree as a whole.

A tree’s shadow in pure spirit,

Is nothing short of elixir.

Because when the extracts of roots, barks or leaves

Fail to cure a disease,

The tonic prepared from the tree’s shadow,

Frightens the germs away.

And purges the body of pestilence

Against all parasitic existence.

Neem tree shadows or gourd tree shadows ridged or bitter,

When stewed into a brew and consumed in litres,

Puts one to sleep snorefully unhindered.

The moonlit shadow of the papaya tree,

Catch it once if you are lucky.

Sniff it well and you’ll be free,

From cough and cold for eternity.

If you can withstand the bitten taste

Of the filthy hog-plum’s shade,

Trust me that your once crippled leg,

Will begin to fully operate.

If you ever wish to survive through the cloudy Aashar days,

Consume the tamarind tree’s shade for twenty-one continuous days.

Also, I have in stock the Mahua tree’s sweet shadowy gaze,

Absorbed like ink on blotting sheets for display.

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It is a pure and fresh desi medicine for sale,

I ask for only fourteen annas per unit of the grail.

The Interpretive Lens:

He was once the blue-eyed boy of our department, trained to keep tabs on everything and everyone assigned to him. But as time moved on, so did he and one day, he simply vanished. All he left behind, was a very brief note and an adaptive translation of Sukumar Ray’s Chhayabaji. Somehow, in an instant the writing brought back so many haunting memories and perspectives associated with spygames – afterall shadow chasing and shadow catching were not for the fainthearted!

Sometimes agent Charlie Foxtrot use to joke: ‘I have a file on you, made out of imprints of your shadows I collected over time!” What were these shadows?

That was scary indeed. And he even joked, that people were nothing more than the shadows they cast under the sun and the moon and a carefully crafted shadow dossier was all that was needed to reconstruct their lives.

But that enthusiasm waded over time and perhaps his reflections about shadowy cures from the different trees of life (secret official instructions) revealed his frustrations about the ways of the world and the diabolical nature of his work. Committed to upholding the rule of law by surveillance and hoping to rescue the deviant souls back to the mainstream, Charlie Foxtrot went about enthusiastically to enforce the cures. He was at the forefront of resettling people, ‘fixing’ opponents to the regime and if needed applying his shadow therapy to make them disappear! But one day, he realized that the shadow games were merely applying cosmetic cures to genuine problems, or worse making people further embittered. Is that why the cynic in him wrote:

“Because when the extracts of roots, barks or leaves

Fail to cure a disease,

The tonic prepared from the tree’s shadow,

Frightens the germs away.

And purges the body of pestilence

Against all parasitic existence.

Neem tree shadows or gourd tree shadows ridged or bitter,

When stewed into a brew and consumed in litres,

Puts one to sleep snorefully unhindered.

The moonlit shadow of the papaya tree,

Catch it once if you are lucky.

Sniff it well and you’ll be free,

From cough and cold for eternity.

If you can withstand the bitten taste

Of the filthy hog-plum’s shade,

Trust me that your once crippled leg,

Will begin to fully operate.”?

We will never know for sure. But what was the cure he promised to peddle at fourteen anna per vial? Learnings of years of surveillance often makes people wiser to the ways of the world and more aware of the consequences of them following orders blindly, as enforcers. Perhaps, in due course agent Charlie Foxtrot realized that people are MUCH MORE than a compilation of their shadows and thus he set out on a secret course to remedy his past actions and offer genuine and time-tested solutions to help people, rather than ‘fix’ them as previously instructed. The truth shall of course, be shadowed forever.

For more on spies who had a change of heart, check out the following:

1) The Hidden Patriot

2) The Lives of Others

3) The Conversation

At East India Story, we’re not just about what bleeds or leads. We’re about what inspires, surprises, and reminds us all that across mountains, cultures, —there’s more that connects us than divides us.