Cover Design

Page 1 of Review published by Arombho

Page 2 of Review published by Arombho

       Review published by Aajkaal

Review published by Ekdin

Review published by Shaptahik Bartoman

Photo by Bhaswar Moitra

Some busily trade

Life’s last drop some can enjoy

And some wait in vain …

The Sea of Japan viewed from Otaru University of Commerce

A sigh of relief is not exactly a sigh in relief, but the difference is more than grammatical. One has to travel all the way to Otaru to appreciate the point.

Otaru is a smallish port located somewhere near the foot of Mount Tengu in the western coast of Hokkaido, one of the coldest regions of the Japanese archipelago. The enchanting little town creeps steadily upwards from the harbor to the top of a mountain, where the Otaru University of Commerce perches, overlooking the magnificent Sea of Japan. During summer, the weather in this part of the country is the closest thing to an earthly Paradise. The winters, however, are long and cruel. Snowfall is a daily ritual and it falls not in flakes, but in heaps, often accompanied by rain. The resulting sleet then conspires with the incline of the city to transform a casual walk along the road into a gymnastic feat. Paradoxically therefore, the picturesquely serene township of Otaru has been nicknamed jigoku-saka or “The Slide to Hell”!

I arrived there one lonely autumn with a visiting appointment in the University. Already the “air” bit “shrewdly”, though I hardly noticed this, being more concerned about my ignorance of the Japanese language. Except for a handful of colleagues, few persons I came across spoke any English. Nevertheless, I had no choice other than English as a medium of instruction for my classes, which the students in their turn accepted with stoic indifference. The telltale lack of enthusiasm on their faces left little doubt about the futility of my teaching efforts. Each morning therefore, I plodded wearily up the road leading to the University, wondering if my situation was any different from that of a prisoner in solitary confinement.

This at least was the way I lived in Otaru till the arrival of the snow. One day though in early winter, a knock on the office door woke me up from morbid preoccupations with myself. I walked over and peeped out apprehensively. A smiling Japanese lad with a vaguely familiar face greeted me at the door and my surprise knew no bounds as he introduced himself to me in perfect English as a student in one of my classes! He wished to invite me he said, to a music performance by an amateur group. I accepted the invitation gratefully and counted on an evening of interaction with students.

I struggled down a slippery street on the appointed day and arrived at the theatre. My expectations were belied however, for the young Japanese students who filled up the auditorium maintained a cautious distance from me. I resigned therefore to being the odd man out till the orchestra struck up the first few notes of the Four Seasons and all discomfort soon dissolved in the elixir of Vivaldi’s creation.

Unfortunately, my involvement with the music grew feebler as we moved into the second of the four seasons. I had earlier treated myself to a few delicious cans of Sapporo beer, and these now made claims on my attention. Soon it was evident that I had no choice left but to take care of the problem. I sneaked out of the auditorium therefore and prowled along the empty corridors in search of the facilities. It was easy enough to locate them, but I found myself on the horns of a dilemma. The familiar pictographic aids of faceless entities, one sporting a Yul Bryner head and the other an over-starched skirt, were nowhere to be seen. In their place, two obscure inscriptions frowned menacingly down at me from adjacent doors. As I learnt to recognize much later, they were 男 and 女, the Chinese characters for man and woman!

The emergency of the circumstance dictated a random selection. Without further ado therefore, I swiftly walked in through one of the doors, only to discover that I had committed a blunder. But the coast being clear and further delays being unbearable, there was no point fleeing. I rushed into the nearest enclosure I found and locked myself in. And then set out to heave a luxurious sigh of relief.

The sigh alas (though fortunately not the relief) was cut mercilessly short by the sound of approaching footsteps, followed by the incomprehensible chatter of a million feminine voices. My entry into the prohibited zone had obviously coincided with the Intermission. Leaving out the dubious case of Mrs. Doubtfire, there are perhaps two classes of middle-aged males who are likely to show up in the Ladies’ Room of a public building. The pervert and the unwitting. But a man in the Ladies’ Room being a man in the Ladies’ Room, members of the fair sex are not expected to verify his motives before calling in the police. And the Japanese police being Japanese, I would in turn be forced to present my case in pantomime! A Herculean absurdity, to say the least.

The only solution seemed to lie in a deus ex machina, for which I prayed fervently. When suddenly, a bell rang out. My heart jumped twice, first in alarm, apprehending the arrival of the Law, but the second time in pleasure, recognizing the bell to be an answer to my prayer. The scuffle of feet, attended by a tone of urgency in the voices, signaled unmistakably that Recess was over. I heard the ladies leave in crowded confusion, their animated conversation gradually fading into the distance, till total silence reigned once again. I opened the door a chink and peered as well as I could to check if there were human traces in the vicinity. Once assured, I strode into the corridor and slipped quietly out of the fateful building. Thereafter, throwing all caution to the winds, I walked, trotted, cantered and finally galloped along the dreaded jigoku-saka, defying the icy surface of the steeply rising street. And I stopped only when I had put in several hundred meters between the theatre and me.

Then, leaning heavily against a roadside tree, I let out the sigh of a lifetime, in utter relief.

Nirmalya Roy lived in Kolkata. He was a rather handsome person and a dentist by profession, whom worldly success had eluded all his life.  The fault did not lie in his stars, but in himself. His family had sent him to the University of Pennsylvania, which housed in its campus one of the top dental schools that the US could boast of at the time. He finished his education with flying colours, returning back to India with a DDS degree that few of his contemporaries failed to envy. Yet, as we observed, he was anything but a success in his professional life. His major shortcoming consisted of garrulity which, though apparently innocent, was in fact a deadly addiction. He spent excessively long periods of time with patients. And more than half the time so spent was wasted in idle conversation, frequently causing the ones in the waiting room to leave in anger and disgust. His unprofessional conduct cost him his career, but he was himself least affected by this, given that he never betrayed even a spark of an ambition to rise in life.   

His wife Seymonti, however, had an approach to life that ran in an exactly opposite direction. She was an adorably pretty housewife with a head full of social aspirations, built entirely around her husband; and she was ever impatient to see him dart across her universe like an inter-galactic missile. But her launching mission failed with stubborn regularity. Nirmalya Roy held firmly on to terra firma. 

Persons as diametrically opposed as the Roys are not expected to be model examples of peaceful coexistence. And indeed, they were not. Their lives were marked by recurrent confrontations, war of words that usually degenerated into blood curdling cries, sometimes beyond human comprehension. Disagreement became a way of life with them, a habit as it were, irrespective of the subject they happened to wrangle over. As a result, their disputes varied from the profound to the ridiculous, bordering now and then on the farcical. 

The following tale should elucidate the point. 

One morning, Seymonti Roy woke up with a toothache. There was a visible inflammation  on her right cheek that threatened to destroy the symmetry of the immaculate face that she possessed. The pain having gotten the better of her, she finally decided to have herself examined by her husband. He undertook a thorough examination of the tooth in his chamber, which adjoined their residence, and declared that it had to go. She was visibly shaken by the prospect of a tooth being pulled out. And since they needed only the slightest of pretexts to start up an argument, she responded to his suggestion with cynical disdain. 

“There’s nothing wrong with the tooth,” she observed, “you’re merely after my blood.” 

Normal human beings might dismiss such a remark as a joke, even if unfair. But theirs was not a run of the mill household. Consequently, Nirmalya Roy let out his characteristic howl. 

“Yes, I am after your blood,” yelled he. “Gallons of it rest assured!” 

What followed was bedlam, with Dr. Roy, brandishing a hypodermic syringe in one hand and a pair of forceps in the other, performing around his petrified life’s partner the dance of a cannibal chief preparing to feast on the white man’s flesh. To the casual observer, neither person exhibited at this point of time the slightest trace of the good looks that nature had profusely showered over them. And this even if the bulge on the lady’s cheek were to be ignored. 

He gave up anticlimactically however, and the effect was counterproductive. It transformed his wife’s attitude from one of mild hesitation to an obstinate refusal to part with the tooth of contention. She would rather bear the pain, she declared, than follow his advice. Strangely enough, the pain too subsided somewhat. Or, so at least she claimed. 

A few days later, they went visiting a dentist friend, whom Dr. Roy knew from his student days. They met in the surgeon’s chamber around closing time, planning to move on from there to a nearby restaurant for dinner. Predictably, the vague boundary between a social and a professional get-together faded away, the conversation veering on to such all absorbing subjects as decaying teeth and purulent gums and finally, much to Mrs. Roy’s resentment, to her ailment. 

The friend was up on his feet immediately, probing brutishly into her mouth. She had to yield to the examination, reluctantly no doubt, being caught in a foreign territory. The dentist gasped with disbelief at what he saw and started screaming at Dr. Roy for his gross negligence. The latter too, refusing to be browbeaten, roared back in indignation. And in the emerging commotion, before one knew what was really happening, the tooth had abruptly ended its caries ridden existence, hanging helplessly in the claws of a gleaming pair of forceps, held securely by the beaming surgeon. 

The dinner engagement was cancelled of course. And, as the friend saw the Roys off in a taxi, he addressed Mrs. Roy with an understanding smile. 

“To tell you the truth Mrs. Roy, my wife too doesn’t have much faith in my professional skills. She normally visits other dentists! I was in total sympathy with both of you when your husband called me up with a script for the play we acted today!” 

Mrs. Roy hissed with rage at this piece of intelligence from between her clenched teeth, which held on to the blob of surgical cotton in her mouth. Her husband on his part gloated with satisfaction over his one-upmanship, and made no secret of his merriment all the way back home. What added to his morbid glee was the fact that the lady was in no condition to open her mouth and retort vocally. 

This author has no information on the course of action Mrs. Roy resorted to once she regained control over her vocal chords. She could well have discovered a way of taking her husband to task for causing her embarrassment, but if she did so, she must have been aware at the same time that it was his careful planning after all that had brought her relief from physical pain. It could not have been easy for her to resolve the conflict. 

As for Dr. Roy, his character too was mysterious to say the least. Realizing that his wife’s ego would stand in the way of having him administer the treatment, he did not hesitate to sacrifice his own and employ an intricately woven subterfuge to alleviate her pain! Now, if he cared so much for her, why on earth didn’t he pay more attention to his practice and offer her a decent life style? 

Since we are unlikely though to discover what constituted the heart of the matter, it is best that we allow the curtain to descend on our story without further investigation.

Stiglitz Interview — Part 1 — around 9 minutes
Stiglitz Interview — Part 2 — around 9 minutes

One cannot quite ignore the Greeks when discussing Sambhu Mitra and that not merely on account of his immortal production of Oedipus Rex (Raja Oyedipaus). Every now and then the Greek notion of Fate keeps rearing up its head in the play Sri Sambhu Mitra as well. The play is all about an uncompromising pursuit of purity and perfection sitting in a world where vulgarity rules the roost. Ultimately, it is Fate that decides how much one must succumb to pressures that lead a person astray.

One way to appreciate this fact is to quote from a handout prepared for the play. On its very first page one comes across a line – “from life towards a search of Shivai”. After watching the play and ruminating over its structure, one cannot help concluding that this quote from Sambhu Mitra’s own play Chand Baniker Pala (Merchant Chand’s Drama) probably constitutes the central pillar for the play. Sambhu Mitra never staged the play, but he read it out to audiences on more than one occasion. Mitra informs the audience in the last of the recordings that although he never took the play as far as the proscenium, he was ending up with the fond hope that if someone in the future finds it to his liking, the reading could possibly help him actually stage the play.

Chand Banik is a well-known character from Bengali folklore (Manasa Mangal). It is the story of a disciple of Shiva, who refuses steadfastly to visit the alter of Manasa. The latter punishes Chand mercilessly and finally destroys his youngest son Lakhinder. Lakhinder’s wife Behula refuses to accept widowhood, following her dead husband’s corpse all the way to Yama’s abode to seek justice. Manasa agrees to restore undo all her mischiefs on condition that Chand consent to worship her. Chand gives in. Manasa releases Chand from her curses and the story ends happily.

Sri Mitra’s version of the story is significantly different. Chand, as in the original story, remains unmoved in his devotion to Shiva even though Shiva does not come to his rescue during any of the tragedies that visit him. At the very end, when Behula returns with Lakhinder with the message that Chand accede to worshipping Manasa, he is a frail, old and broken man. He agrees, except for the defiance he shows by the use of his left hand to perform the rituals.

In the meantime, Behula informs the audience that she had to sacrifice all her womanly virtures to extract the promise from Manasa to resurrect her dead husband. She had no innocence left in her and Lakhinder too discovered the truth. They decide to commit suicide together unable to bear their humiliation. When Chand returns after appeasing Manasa, he discovers that he had compromised in vain. All his life, he remained a faithful devotee of Shiva, who merely tested the strength of his purpose. At the end of his life, when unable to reach his goal he finally climbed down to the mortal world of compromises, he found out that it was emptiness alone that awaited him there as well.

Ultimately therefore, Sambhu Mitra’s own version of the Chand story is a reflection on the absurdity of human existence. Alternatively, it could be a loaded message that one’s faith does not command a material reward. Faith itself is its own reward, however painful the surroundings may be for the faithful. It is exactly here that one detects an aura of the Greek notion of Fate in Chand Baniker Pala.

There can be little doubt that Chand Baniker Pala does act as a solid pillar on which the Natyranga play rests. This is clear enough as soon as the curtain rises following a short, pleasing overture (the score for which is written by Swatilekha Sengupta). The semi-dark stage reveals a simple but elegant set designed by Koushik Sen. There is a sailing boat in the background, a circular ring sticking to the wings on the front stage right and three objects on the front stage left. An angular structure leaning on the wings, a letter box on a stand and a round but twisted clock reminiscent of Salvador Dali’s much acclaimed painting The Persistence of Memory.
The last of these is significant, since it promises to invoke memories, memories that stand deformed probably, misunderstood perhaps, yet malleable and possibly susceptible to re-interpretation. The triangle (or the sharp angle) and the circle facing each other appear to symbolize a self-contradiction, between total surrender and dogmatic defiance. The letter box is probably not a part of the symbolic message as should be clear from observations that will follow. However, the large boat in the background draws most of our attention and has a Greek Prologue like appearance, even if silent, to prepare the audience mentally for the subject matter of the play. One must assume of course that the audience is familiar with the play Chand Baniker Pala.

As one’s eyes get adjusted to the semi-darkness, one detects several people sitting on the stage in different postures. There are three slightly elevated platforms, one in the front centre and the other two in the two front ends of the stage. The central platform, partly surrounded by the characters, conjures up a séance like atmosphere, the platform itself resembling a pyre on which a service for the departed had possibly been performed on an earlier date. A dear one is no more and the family appears to be mourning.

Once the characters begin to speak, however, a new dimension is added to the scenario. They are all picked out of plays Sambhu Mitra had produced and each one, including Ballavacharya and Beninandan (from the Chand play), seems to be in a state of dilemma. They have questions for their Director. Some of these questions relate to their own relevance today, but some relate to the Director’s personal life and beliefs too. At this point, one cannot help travelling several years back (and Dali could be relevant here too) to the days when Nandikar produced Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author. Like Pirandello’s play, the characters seek the Director to complete their tales.

There is a difference this time of course. The Director himself is no more. One needs to communicate with his spirit. The characters have begun to entertain doubts about the Director’s own credibility and hence the meaning he infused into their lives in the plays. As in a séance once again, they call out to him to reappear from the Kingdom of Pluto as it were and resolve their confusions. There is one more reason why Pirandello’s relevance for the present play cannot be ignored altogether, given that Sri Rudraprasad Sengupta, who was one of the chief architects of the Nandikar production, is involved with the present play as well.

Sri Sengupta’s participation is important in yet another way. It was he who was instrumental in bringing together several theatre groups and assemble them around Sambhu Mitra while he was still alive and produce two plays Mudrarakshas and Galileo. These unforgettable productions have still not faded from public memory and, now that Sambhu Mitra is no more, incidents concerning the earlier plays are related by Sri Sengupta’s voice. Besides, as was true for the Sengupta’s previous effort, the new play too has received the blessings of a number of active drama groups in the city.

Sri Sambhu Mitra responds to the calls and appears aboard the ship in the background. Symbolically, this raises him to the status of his own Chand Banik, the rebel whom Fate had forced to surrender. Repeatedly through the play, Chand Banik keeps cropping up in reply to the multifarious questions raised by the characters and the final conclusion that the resurrected Mitra comes to is that, like Chand, he knew his purpose, but not the way that led to its achievement. The purpose, needless to say, lay in artistic excellence, but the real world demanded compromises with coarse reality.

His compromises, as far as one could make out from the play, did not leave a mark on his art. But it did affect him as a man of the world. Given this approach, Natya Ranga needs to be commended for not trying to raise Mitra to the status of a Prometheus. He was a great artist, but when compelled by Fate, was as commonplace as any man on the street.

One wondered of course if the deep philosophical issues that Chand faced needed to be mixed up with Mitra’s personal matters bordering on pettiness. To the public at large, Mitra was certainly answerable for the art he practised, but was he expected to answer questions relating to his personal life? The fact that Mitra did not sign on an appeal to release Utpal Dutt from police custody comes up in this connection. His characters raise this question. More questions come up, some relating to his closeness to the Congress government of the time. And even his personal life with Smt Tripti Mitra is brought up. She is praised for bearing the financial burden of propping up Sambhu Mitra’s unflinching rejection of the commercial stage. However, the reason forwarded for his separation from her sounds almost hollow, though this is presented with true theatrical finesse. It is here that the letter box mentioned earlier plays a part.

Towards the end of Putul Khela (A Doll’s House by Ibsen), where Tripti Mitra comes up with her immortal recitation of Tagore’s ami poraner sheathe khelibo ajike, apparently Sambhu Mitra began to twirl a key ring on his right index finger during a rehearsal. It is exactly at this point of time that the postman delivers the dreaded Putul Khela letter and the letter box lights up in unison. The letter box is used as a fascinating tour de force helping the shift from the abstract to the concrete. Tripti Mitra objects to the twirling of the key, since this was not the way Sambhu Mitra played his role in the past. Sri Mitra reacts however by telling her that the essence of the situation lay in the key itself and it was he who was the Director of the play! Upon this, Tripti Mitra leaves the rehearsal in a huff!

After all the talk about Oedipus’ relentless search for truth, of the role of Fate (comparable to Greek tragedy once again) in Chand’s story, this utterly childish interaction between the real life husband wife pair being brought up in the play comes as a disappointment, especially since this incident is linked up with their eventual separation. What is worse is that the actress (probably Anindita Bandyopadhyay) who recites the Tagore poem during the enactment of the scene is either too young to have heard Tripti Mitra’s rendition, or, if she is aware of that goose flesh inducing recitation, then she failed in her job. This part stands out poorly in contrast with the rest of the play.

Refusing entry to Sri Dharani Ghosh and Samik Bandyopadhyay to watch Sri Sambhu Mitra’s performances is brought up too. Sri Rudraprasad Sengupta’s voice explains why they could not be allowed to destroy a monumental effort that was on to bring Bengali theatre together. The explanation sounds like post facto rationalization, carrying little conviction, for no such amalgamation actually took place. Besides, the audience is told that Samik Bandyopadhyay had actually not even shown up (so that he could not have been thrown out), leaving unclear the Dharani Ghosh part of the story. Was it necessary though to reveal these tabloid style scandals in the context of a man who was obviously being taken to symbolize Chand Banik or Oedipus? Things are not helped either when Sri Sambhu Mitra declares that he did not own a car! There is a clear lack of balance here, in so far as pettiness mingles with supreme refinement.

On the other hand, and as already pointed out above, these issues could have been deliberately brought in, simply to impress upon the audience that the play was not about elevating a human being, however talented, above humanity.

The quality of acting throughout the play is mediocre at best. This shows up particularly in the poor quality of voice control on the part of almost all the actors. Sri Surajit Bandyopadhyay did impress at times, but only when he was not playing Sambhu Mitra the actor par excellence. There were more than two occasions when he adopted the hoarse artificial voice Mitra employed in Oyedipaus as well as Galileo. Bandyopadhyay’s effort rang a bell, but the words he spoke remained unclear, possibly on account of the use of a hidden microphone. He failed to carry it off. His Christ like postures on the top of the ship were unconvincing too, as was the agitation he tried to communicate in a somewhat spread eagled manner on his arched back across the central platform on front stage. This is not a reflection on his acting skills. It probably means that these actions did not mix too well with the context.

The side characters too did not impress, particularly so when they stood between the spot lights and co-actors casting shadows on faces that were supposed to be lit. This is a minimal lesson that stage actors are supposed to learn, viz. ensuring the lights to fall on their faces when necessary. More importantly, pronunciation of Bengali words using compound letters needs to be improved. It is almost certain that Sri Sambhu Mitra would himself have paid more attention to the matter. There was a set of mime artistes too that failed to leave any impression at all.

As one watched the play, one could not help asking if Mitra, like Wilde, believed that “An artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim.” Utpal Dutt’s voice and finally the juxtaposition of their portraits on the stage with each one philosophizing about his respective position could probably have been done to contrast their approaches to the theatre. However, the final conclusion that the play reached in this connection was somewhat unclear.

At the abstract level, the play is interesting, but execution wise it leaves a lot to be desired. And this is partly on account of the questionable standard of performance by all actors except the prinicipal character. Partly, the play disappoints also because of the manner in which the divine is coupled with sundry trash , even if this was intentionally brought in. After all, Behula too had to bow down to the level of a common nautanki in the Sambhu Mitra version of the Chand story. Finally, one must give it to the Director that he keeps an element of hope alive in so far as Sri Sambhu Mitra sends off his sailors to start rowing the stalled boat again. Also, the play announces in unequivocal terms that politics and art are strange bedfellows.

With more performances, the quality of the presentation will surely improve. Sambhu Mitra’s spirit laments that while actors such as John Gielgud have been analyzed by art critics, little has been done about Sishir Bhaduri or Manoranjan Bhattacharyya. Stage acting has not grown up as an institution in the country. A few Sambhu Mitras, Utpal Dutts and Ajitesh Bandyopadhyays have definitely cropped up on their own in Bengal, but they have not been able to leave indelible footmarks for future generations to follow. In fact, the amateurish performance of most of the artistes in the play Sri Sambhu Mitra demonstrates this all too clearly.

Photograph by Bhaswar Moitra

Coy beginning this?

Or a dismal denouement?

Their silence intrigues …

The poet experimented with an interesting and unusual rhythmic structure for this beautiful poem. It reads quite naturally in Bengali. However, for English readers, the rhythm may not come easily if the lines are arranged as they appeared in the original Bengali poem. To take care of the problem, I am starting off with the English reader friendly format. This is followed by the format that is closer to the Bengali original. The essential difference between the two is that the “English reader” version has split up long lines into short ones. The words used are identical for the two versions. Also, I have added punctuation in the first version that were absent in the Bengali poem. Version 2 of the translation avoids punctuation as well.

Version 1: For English Readers

There happened to be a tree
Throwing up its arms,
As soon as the eve arrived,
It danced in ghostly spree.
On occasions again,
When the clouds glistened as they gathered
Atop the woods it growled.
For a bear it’d become, its shoulders in a hump,
It shivered if it rained and in a fever it’d slump.
When a spell of rain is over,
And full of smiles once again the moon begins to hover.
Where on earth did the bear go, where for that matter the tree?
A million diamond fishes have thronged
To form the crown I see.

What was it that tilted
In the half-shadows of dawn?
I didn’t know -
This I could’ve sworn.
As the morning then arrived,
Not a single fish survived.
The silver fringe of a shimmering light
Is all that caught my sight.

Version 2: For Readers familiar with the Bengali language

There happened to be a tree
Throwing up its arms as soon as the eve arrived it danced in ghostly spree.
On occasions again
When the clouds glistened
As they gathered atop the woods it growled
For a bear it’d become, its shoulders in a hump
It shivered if it rained and in a fever it’d slump
When a spell of rain is over
And full of smiles once again the moon begins to hover
Where on earth did the bear go, where for that matter the tree
A million diamond fishes have thronged to form the crown I see.

What was it that tilted in the half-shadows of dawn
I didn’t know – this I could’ve sworn
As soon’s as the morning arrived,
Not a single fish survived.
The silver fringe of a shimmering light
Is all that caught my sight.

Showers have arrived over the river
The water has risen in a tide
Like hopes one keeps concealed — a few
Fireflies dim oft come to view
And switching off and on their glow
In bamboo groves they hide.
The mighty weight of the cloud filled sky
Is borne by the lightning’s pain
Naïve and inconsolable
It groans alone in vain.
Intangible, yet ferocious and false
The frothy waters’ uncertain calls 
Fade away as mute destiny
Signals with a nod.
I came away and left you dear
In the custody of God.   

 A lamp sits staring as it burns
Inside a chamber small
Next to a trembling bosom it shows
A solitary arm reclining close
On a patched cloth sewn from memories torn
Soothing cool its call
  The magic spell of remembrances
Hides the door in a mist
Springs right then a pointed sword –
Straight on to my fist. 
Lost away in the days of yore
Migratory winds come back to lure 
When dark nights full of fragrance
From the childhood arrive and trod
I came away and left my love
In the custody of God.

Betwixt the folds of the sails the future’s 
Womb to the full expands. 
The stifling pressure of a pending fate
Makes the ribs of the planks vibrate
The stern begins to rock in panic 
With the restless fishes’ bands.
His longings’ helm the sailor holds
With determination grim
In currents full of fraud floats off
My corpse discarded skin.
Beneath the heart, a holocaust rears
As the pull of the oars dare mortal fears
The waves and the horizon end colliding 
Drunken in discord.
I came away and left my life
In the custody of God. 

In reverse stream now starts to flow 
My prayers in the dark.
Inside a slumber endless blue
A pain holds tightly — without a clue
To escape routes from the naïve deceit
Of a wakeful contrast stark.
Even so there stands a dwelling
Covered by creepers green
Upon its slip of a balcony still
The forefathers convene.
Let their whispers, supple and soft
Send raining down the cautions they brought
And a thousand blinding terrors and doubts 
About objects strange and odd.
I came away and left you dear
In the custody of God.

__________________________________

Translation of a Bengali poem, Samarpan, by Buddhadev Bose. Original poem composed during 6-9 September, 1954. The poem appeared in the poet’s collection entitled A Darkness that Exceeds Light (যে আঁধার আলোর অধিক), published in May, 1958.