If I got an Eternal Life / Jibanananda Das

If I got an Eternal Life


If I got an eternal life - and then alone go on
walking the paths of the world: I shall see green grasses
spring up and yellow leaves dropp off - watch the sky
clearing as it dawns - and at the dusk, a streak of
blood from a slain Munia clinging to its bosom - and sessions with the stars, time and again that too. I shall see
how an unknown woman makes her way
her loose bun falling apart - ah, her face lacks
twilight's comely touch.

If I really got an endless life - and for eternity
roamed about the world - past a lot of
Trams, buses and dusts - bunch of slums and bazaars - across
swampy lanes, pieces of broken chillum and urn -
a fight here, a quarrel there, squint eyes, rotten shrimps -
Caught sight of so many things all on the way
Except a glimpse of you for once ever in this life.

[Translated by Faizul Latif Chowdhury]

Jibanananda Das

Go Where You Will /Jibanananda Das

Go Where You Will


Go where you will – I shall remain on Bengal’s shore
Shall see jackfruit leaves dropping in the dawn’s breeze;
Shall see the brown wings of shalik chill in the evening,
Its yellow leg under the white down goes on dancing
In the grass, darkness – once, twice – and then suddenly
The forest’s oak beckons it to its heart’s side,
Shall see sad feminine hands – white conch-bangles
Crying like conch shells in the ash-grey wind:
She stands on the pond’s side in the evening,


As if she will take the parched rice hued duck
To some land of legends –
As if the fragrance of the quiltcover clings to her body,
As if she is born out of watercress in the pond’s nest –
Washes her feet silently – then goes faraway, traceless
In the fog – yet I know I shall not lose her
In the crowd of the earth –
She is there on my Bengal’s shore.

(Sonnet 3, Rupashi Bangla)

Jibanananda Das

A Magpie /Jibanananda Das

A Magpie


At a slightly slothful pace
A silent man quietly walks across the meadows
His autumn passes by mostly propped on two legs
With a mouthful of still shadow of a plough and ox.

To his own water, the Bhagirathi is a close relative.
He responds to none from his secret den.
A magpie robin whistles out of mind-
cold from the earth's last afternoon

perched on the roof of a post-mortem cell.
Whose corpse was it? Who dissected?
Why the world today bleeds so much?
The violin goes on playing the chorus.

Twilight though, the rustic man walks as if basking in the sun
Nonexistent, yet a woman becomes visible.
When the magpie blows away the dissected corpse
I can feel the advent of a primordial magpie.

[Translated by Faizul Latif Chowdhury]

Jibanananda Das

Banalata Sen

Banalata Sen


It has been a thousand years since I started trekking the earth
A huge travel in night’s darkness from the Ceylonese waters
to the Malayan sea
I have been there too: the fading world of Vimbisara and Asoka
Even further—the forgotten city of Vidarva,
Today I am a weary soul although the ocean of life around continues to foam,
Except for a few soothing moments with Natore’s Banalata Sen.

Her hair as if the dark night of long lost Vidisha,
Her face reminiscent of the fine works of Sravasti,
When I saw her in the shadow it seemed
as if a ship-wrecked mariner in a far away sea
has spotted a cinnamon island lined with greenish grass.
“Where had you been lost all these days? ”
yes, she demanded of me, Natore’s Banalata Sen
raising her eyes of profound refuge.

At the day’s end evening crawls in like the sound of dews,
The kite flaps off the smell of sun from its wings.
When all colours take leave from the world
except for the flicker of the hovering fireflies
The manuscript is ready with tales to be told
All birds come home, rivers too,
All transactions of the day being over
Nothing remains but darkness
to sit face to face with Banalata Sen.

Translated by Faizul Latif Chowdhury

Jibanananda Das