# Managing the Journey through Rough Terrain

- Link: https://writersworkshopindia.com/2016/09/14/managing-the-journey-through-rough-terrain/
- Published: 2016-09-14T03:08:59+00:00
- Author: shuktara

5/5 - (1 vote)

**Author:** Gouranga P. Chattopadhyay[⌊wp_20160912_16_43_33_pro-1⌉](https://writersworkshopindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/WP_20160912_16_43_33_Pro-1.jpg)
**
Pages:** 100 **Year of Publication:** 2016 **Price:** Rs 200 **ISBN: **978-93-5045-
133-5 (9789350451335)

_**About the Author**_
 Born in 1931, Emeritus Professor Gouranga P. Chattopadhyay
started writing poetry late in his life. He has published six collections of verse,
all with **Writers Workshop**, India, between 1983 and 2014. His other publications
include works of criticism, journal articles and English translations of Sulekha
Sanyal’s _Nanabankur_ (a Bengali novel) and a collection of Rabindranath Tagore’s
poems and songs (ed. Himani Banerjee). A  festschrift edited by Ajeet N. Mathur 
was  published  in  his  honour and  launched  simultaneously  from  Indian  Institute
of  Management,  Ahmedabad,  and  Centre  for Socio-Analysis, Melbourne, on his 
75th birthday.

At present, he works as a socio-analyst and designs  and  offers  workshops  as 
an organisation  consultant  and  works  as  staff  in  group  relations programmes
when invited. He spends his time writing, reading and travelling. After the passing
of his wife in 2011, he divides his time between Calcutta, Santiniketan and his 
sons’ houses in Singapore, Uttarakhand, Hong Kong and Mumbai.

_**Teaser**_

_“Old age should rave and burn at close of day”_
 _ (Dylan Thomas)_

It struck me like a blow below the belt
 Or perhaps even a bolt from the blue And
yet with a flavour familiar to me Since it was a fight of I versus I. A thought,
a brain child of none else but me, It stopped me in my track and almost threw me
off balance. I found myself wondering if my life had any value just then Other than
the reflected love and regard from my extended Family and a handful of friends and
colleagues.

Had I at the same time become an emotional burden to them?
 Am I contributing anything
really useful to the world? Will there linger a sense of loss and grief beyond a
period measurable By the single sheet of a calendar hanging in an obscure corner
Of the house and the householder alike? Can I fade away like the true soldier of
life That I hope to have been till my heart broke metaphorically In the dark hours
of a January morning And now seems to literally show the tell-tale marks of My pulsating
heart beginning to crumble With the onslaught of passing years leading to old age
With blood running cold and in sluggish stream Like old rivers choking with silt,
reduced almost to a trickle, That move like old men with an escort and a sturdy 
stick Strong enough to withstand the weight of an adult not quite withered, Lazily
moving around huge tracts of silt dried solid by the sun, With arteries swelling
like evil balloons Waiting to burst in a spray of tired blood Seeking independence
from the prison of tubular lengths of cells And muscles sagging with bones turning
brittle by the day.

[Tirucherapally: 21.34 hrs, Saturday, 16.3.2013.]

A review of the book appears in [Kitaab](https://kitaab.org/2017/01/17/book-review-managing-the-journey-through-rough-terrain-by-gouranga-p-chattopadhyay/).

_**Contents**_
 46 poems