Poems

From the collection Puja, ‘Worship’

248:

There is sadness, there is death, at parting searing pain.

Even so peace, even bliss, infinite do reign.

Even so flows on the spirit’s stream; the sun, moon and stars beam.

Spring comes to the garden in mysterious refrain.

Waves mingle, waves loom;

Flowers drop, flowers bloom.

Where there is no decay, no end, nor any stain—

At the feet of that Whole the mind seeks to remain.

 12

My day goes by even till evening does turn

Trying to tune into the notes of your tune.

The pain of the song will not be borne by the ektara’s single cord alone.

My defeat I own, with you at this play, again and again.

Trying to tune into the notes of your tune.

Bound I am by this string to the music at hand

While distant flows the sound of the flute.

At the edge of the wondrous play of the song, can everyone join

To cross the soul of the universe where the net of music is lain

Trying to tune into the notes of your tune?

13

The bounds of life and death left behind

You stand there, my friend, I find.

This, my heart’s solitary sky

Your great light is covered by.

With such yearning within which bliss does lie

I gaze at you, hands stretched wide.

The silent night at thy feet, unbound

Spreads the weight of its dark tresses down.

What song today, is the universe brimming by

Cascading down from your veena on high

The skies in resonant melody unite/together lie

Lost in the pathos of the sound.

559

Just gazing at this path, to me such joy does bring

Sunshine and shadow play on, rain comes and spring.

Strangers bearing tidings pass in front of me,

Happy in myself am I as the breeze flows softly.

Eyes transfixed, at the door all day alone I stay.

Awaiting the blessed moment, which may come my way.

Till then every instant, I smile to myself and sing.

Till then, every now and then, the fragrance wafts in.

590

What fear of the unknown have I?

‘Tis the unknown that through my life I will get to recognise.

This I know, what I call my own, will stay for all time.

And by an unknown cord, draw me on a path shorn of all signs.

I did not know my mother, she took me in her arms.

Love itself cannot be known, dear one, and that is why the heart does dance.

Amidst this universe, to so many melodies the heart resonates.

My life itself is a mystery and so I move entranced.

Bidhir Bandhon Kaatbe Tumi

Bidhir bandhon kaatbe tumi

Emon shoktimaan —

Tumi ki emon shoktimaan!

Aamader bhaanga gara tomar haathe

Emon obhimaan —

Tomader emni obhimaan.

Chirodin taanbe pichhe, chirodin raakhbe nichhe —

Eto bal naai re tomaar   shoeibe na shei taan.

Shashone jotoi ghero — aache bol durbolero, 

Hao-na jotei boro aachhen  bhogaban.

Aamader shokti mere torao banchbi ne-re

Bojha tor bhari holei doob-be torikhan. 

Rabindranath Tagore, 1905

And so you believe you 

Can evade what destiny has in store for you —

So powerful are you!

And so you believe you

Can break us and make us too —

So full of pride are you.

That it is you who

Can always drive us back, keep us under —

That power you do Not possess, 

Your hold will sunder.

Encircle us as you might

Know that the weak too can resist, can fight.

Elevate yourself all you will

There is a God higher still.

Suppress us and you perish too.

The swollen ship you steer 

Will buckle and sink with you.

Free Rendition/Translation in English: Anisha Shekhar Mukherji

Consultation and advice: Snehanshu Mukherjee and Dilip K Basu

विधि के बंधन को भी काट सकोगे, हो इतने शक्तिमान,

तुम क्या इतने शक्तिमान!

हमारा बनना-बिगड़ना तुम्हारे हाथों, इतना अभिमान,

तुम्हारा ऐसा अभिमान।

हमेशा खींचोगे पीछे, हमेशा रखोगे नीचे,

इतना बल नहीं तुममें, रहोगे नहीं हमें खींचें।

शासन में जितना ही घेरो, है बल दुर्बल में भी,

जितने भी क्यों न हो तुम बड़े, है भगवान भी।

हमारी शक्ति मार के, ख़ैर नहीं तुम्हारी,

बोझा भारी कर के, डूबेगी ही नाव तुम्हारी।

Translation in Hindi: Anisha Shekhar Mukherji

Photograph showing crowds rallying in protests against the Bengal Partition

Featured in Nihar, a local daily newspaper of Contai (Purba Medinipur), 1905

Source: https://indianculture.gov.in/digital-district-repository/district-repository/nihar-newspaper-curzons-decision-partition-bengal

Map showing the Province of Bengal before its partition 

Source: Pope, G. U. (1880), Text-book of Indian History: Geographical Notes, Genealogical Tables, Examination Questions, London: W. H. Allen & Co. Pp. vii, 574, 1880

Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pope1880BengalPres2.jpg

See also: 

https://en.banglapedia.org/index.php/Partition_of_Bengal,_1905

Of Mother-tongues and Lands

Are you Al-Hind or Aryavart;

Jambudvip, India or Bhartavarsh?

Or all these together - and more -

Shaped by all the words 

You have ever borne?

Or is it the other way 

Around - do your names say

What you were, or will be?

Do you reflect what they

Describe - or is it only me?

Does it matter if I

Forsake the sounds of my 

Own mother's tongue?

Or the names you were known by

When you were young?

For is it not true

Beyond the names she answers to,

Our mother is marked

By her thoughts, sparked

For us - and for others too?

Can you then recognise

Your own self in the guise

Of a language from another land?

In attributes that others devise

Can you my words understand?

And while what I say

May be more important than the way

I speak - does that mean

Love must first and always

Be heard to be seen?

Do you not think

It is you I diminish and shrink

Into an empty shell, when I

Strike down the link

You nurtured all of us by?

And if, as languages die

With them do vanish by

Ways of seeing the universe;

It is this too the deaths signify

Of your faiths diverse.

So whatever we may choose

To call you, may you be the muse

That inspires us to peace.

May we never lose

The beauty of your lands and seas.

Summer

Still in the summer

An unseen koel somewhere

Practises her songs.

Summer II

She lies on her back

Birds circle in the sky

Waiting for the rain.

The Song of the Moderns

Oh, to be modern,

Now that everyone’s been there.

And shove away the odd-and

Old ways, a-la Le Corbusier.

To bow at the altar

Of Hoffman, Josef and Gropius, Walter.

And tread in the glimmering footprints,

Of the Kandiniskys and the Klimts.

To build our own Falling-waters

Regurgitate the modern masters

And be honest, frank and forthright,

Ah – but was Lloyd Wright?

To post hastily across latitudes

Every new fad in patent hues.

And mouth free-verse in jumbled jargon

Amidst a Mondrian-isquely landscaped garden.

To liberate space and air

With worlds of glass. Forget the glare.

And disdain alike with aplomb

The gaze of the sun and the Peeping-Tom.

To plant towers that touch the sky

In fields of mustard, wheat and rice.

And weed out the farmer and the flower-bed,

Grow gardens on roofs instead.

To guzzle steel and stone unabashedly

In designs that twist verily Gehry-ly.

And beer in hand, echo Mies van der Rohe

Declaring wisely, ‘Less is more’!

 The Garden

There once was

A garden within a wall,

Rising green and tall.

And a boy, quite small,

Paused by it, enthralled.

Its trees,

Dark as clouds in the monsoon sky,

In spring were covered by

Tiny flowers, whose scent rose high

Filling the air, far and nigh.

One summer day,

The boy passed by again,

When they were heavy and laden

With colours of saffron and golden,

And wished he could have them.

So, he climbed

Up and over the wall,

And careful not to let any fall,

Plucked seven mangoes in all

While he heard the squirrels call.

As he turned to go,

He saw a man standing,

Watchful and questioning,

For the garden belonged to him.

And he was afraid, for to steal is a sin.

But when the man saw

The boy had taken only

A few for his family,

He said he may take some fruit daily—

And plant the seeds as a fee.

Then the boy,

Happy as can be,

Reared the seeds tenderly.

And by the time they grew, and he,

So did the gardens, with many a tree.