Aju Mukhopadhyay is a poet, essayist, feature and fiction writer. He has three books of short stories among his thirteen Books in Bengali, which include poems, biographies, essays and translations. He has authored seven books in English, which include novel, poems, biography, short story and a book on the environment. He has been awarded Certificate of Competence as a Published Writer by the Writers Bureau, Manchester, UK and awarded- Best Poet of the Year-2003- by the Poets International, Bangalore, India.
He is a nature and animal lover and works for the protection of nature and environment.

A Dream like State

The more he lives near you
More by you he is possessed
More his living in the world
Becomes a dream like state

Toward a being transformed
Shunning the old concept
From an unknown world
He drifts in dream like state

Paraphernalia of life
Bonds with him thickset
Fall like leaves from tree
Leaving in dream like state

Natant faces of bygone days
In memory's water set
Attempts to hold them fail
Floating in dream like state

Before he sleeps he has 
To go alone miles ahead
Over the nights and days
All in a dream like state

Silent hostile path
There is no goal exact
None can uplift, give shelter
In his dream like state

Even if misunderstood
His love for all spread
He cannot be dishonoured 
In his dream like state.

To The Gallows

To hang a jail-tortured man
For a devilish crime once done
Thorough gun-ho criminals
Called all the soldiers,
Though any such criminal 
Propped by or himself politician
Usually escapes the gallows
Such a thing the moralist swallows.
But he was a poor individual
Ethicists decided that the crime was fatal.
To cope with the situation
All the guns were ready
But the job was done
By hands and rope only
With great precision and fanfare:
Heroes indeed, we find all over.
If for a murder in cold blood you murdered the murderer
Where was the justice superior?
Where was the order?
© Aju Mukhopadhyay, 2004
Wishes

Bubbles of wishes are all over scattered
In the net by which I am snared
Waiting for the sparks of aspirations straight
To persist to rise up and fire the net.

Witnesses of Time

The ruins at Hampi, 500 years old
Remind us of Roman ruins, 2000 years old.
But physical remains are not the only basis of history
Images of truth of other bygone days are shrouded by mystery;
Life styles of different ages, through symbolic story
Come to us, supported by epics and mythology.
Anagundi, the capital of the other kingdom 
In ancient kiskindha, was Sugriva's kingdom.
The beauty of the nearby Pampa Sarovara
Made Rama passionate for abducted Sita.
It is believed that in Anjanadri hill
Hanuman was born, near Durga Devi temple.
Beneath the Matanga hill lay the temple of Kodanda Rama,
Where after killing Vali, he crowned Sugriva.

Relics of nothing made by men of the mythical age remains
But the same flowing river, hills and dales and lakes
Carry the memory of the dramatic personae, their presence.
The dry and rocky region, with ancient memories replete,
Makes us pine for what is not, makes us nostalgic.