Bridging The Divide

A Poet's Dilemma

As the sun sank beneath the skyline, the port city of Chattogram was showered in a brilliant hue. The scent of salt and spice blends into the talk of the city, mixed with the mutter of ships and the thunder of the evening swarm. Within the middle of this chaos, Arif stood at the edge of the wharf, overlooking the Bay of Bengal. The waves whispered many insights to him, but the words were bizarre and unsettling.

Arif Ahmed was a poet, or at least he thought he was. After graduating in English Language and Literature, he worked as an employee in a private bank, which earned him a livelihood. Born in post-colonial India in the 1990s, his childhood was stamped by recollections of British running the show and echoes of social pressures.

His father, an instructor of English Literature in a reputed private university, routinely talked of the colonial past with a mix of fear and shock. He ingrained in Arif an adoration of the English language but, at the same time, a profound sense of inadequacy. Composing in English was like wearing a veil he didn't like, a cover that stowed away his genuine self.

He recalled him to begin with a sonnet, "A Tale of The Monsoon," a poem full of energetic abundance. But when he displayed it to his father, he felt disheartened,

"Arif, why don't you compose in Bengali? Our language has so much history and soul that English can never capture."

That statement remained burned in Arif's judgment skills, reminding him of the gap between his reality and his dreams. He was required motivation, but the world he was endeavouring to rouse talked an assorted lingo.

Over the period of a few years, Arif's inward struggle developed. He tried to get his poems published in local multilingual magazines but got a small reaction. Some readers accused his works of being ineffective and imitative of Western poetry. All the criticism deepened his insecurities. He was a stranger in his own country, cut off from his roots but unable to embrace the Western world, which he idolised.

In this crisis, Arif found peace in his friendship with Rana. Since school, they have been connected through a shared love of books and music. Rana was an energetic soul and wasn't hesitant to talk about his intellect. Being a sociology graduate, he continually addressed social standards and broke boundaries. Their discussions regularly turned to verse, character, and the battles of youthful artists in a quickly changing world.

One evening, while sitting in a neighbourhood coffee shop—a well-known assembly put for intellectuals and artists—the scent of new tea blended with the fragrance of the moist soil.

When Rana joined him, Arif was absentmindedly drinking his tea, lost in thought.

"A penny for your thought!"

Rana called out with a warm voice,

Arif chuckled.

"I'm… surviving. It's a constant battle."

Rana shook his head, understanding the unuttered words.

“I can sense your frustration, but it will seem even more impossible if you keep holding back.”

Arif murmured,

"Conceivably. Composing in English feels like walking a tightrope. One wrong step, and you lose your balance."

"Why don't you try to compose in Bengali?"

Rana proposed, his eyes shimmering with hope.

"Our language is astonishing and expressive. It can pass on sentiments that English cannot."

Arif shook his head.

"It's not that simple. When I type in Bengali, I feel I will never reach my dreams, but composing in English makes me feel lost."

"Perhaps the issue isn't the language but your perception of it,"

Rana's words hung in the air, a challenge that struck Arif.

The two companions talked about verse late into the night, digging into the works of Tagore and Neruda and investigating viewpoints of their particular societies.

"Non-native poets' English poems lack native fluency and depth. I guess they are not close to verse."

Arif sighed.

"They talk to the heart of your personality. You can't partition your dialect from your roots."

Contended Rana.

"Easier said than done,"

Arif answered with an indication of disappointment in his voice.

"What if my roots do not adjust to my dreams? What if I had the off chance to be an artist in a foreign language?"

As he considered their discussion, his contemplations turned to Ishrat, his sweetheart. The more troublesome their relationship got to be, the harder it was for them to spend time together. Ishrat, a phonetics analyst, was continuously strong but battled to get Arif out of his fears. Her scholastic victory was a stark difference from Arif's discernable deficiencies. Arif recalled their final discussion, which was full of conflict but full of care.

"Why can't you see? Poetry is all-inclusive! It rises above language. Why are you so hesitant to grasp your genuine self?"

Ishrat had contended, her eyebrows furrowed in concern.

"Every time I try to be authentic, I feel like I'm falling flat,"

Arif admitted, his voice hardly over a whisper. Ishrat's expression relaxed.

"I do not see you falling flat. I see you covering up. I adore you for your enthusiasm, not for the language you type in. Do not let fear control your creativity."

Those words reverberated through his psyche as he confronted the bright screen in his little work area. The hush of the night was stunning, intensifying the questions and fears that developed within the periodic tick of the clock, taunting him and reminding him of the time he had squandered.

In his loss of hope, Arif starts to address his character as a writer. Was his energy for verse honest to himself or just a daydream? The line between his dreams and reality obscured him, tossing him into a sea of instability.

As the primary morning beams broke through the window ornaments, Arif realized that he must go up against his inward devils. He combats not as if it were a creative block but, a sense of entrapment between the characters he was instructed to respect and the character he needed to grasp.

As he reflected, he chose to burrow deeply into his roots to get the influence of his post-colonial personality. As it were, this seems to free him from loss of motion and help him rediscover his voice. He was required to adjust his aspirations with his values and bridge the gap between his father's trust and his possessed dreams while looking for an endorsement from Rana and Ishrat. He had just begun to weave the complex embroidered artwork of his personality into the texture of his verse.