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Selection Of Sixty Poems Of Jibanananda Das. cover: Hiran Mitra

Translators:
	   Utpal Kumar Basu (Bengali poet)
	   Shirshendu Chakarabarti (Prof English U Delhi)
	   Sumita Chakarabarti (Prof English U Burdwan)
	   Sudeshna Chakarabarti (Prof English U Calcutta)
	   Bhaswati Chakravorty (Asst Editor The Telegraph)
	   Sukanta Chaudhuri (Prof English Jadavpur)
	   Supriya Chaudhuri (Prof English Jadavpur)
	   Indrani Haldar (ex-reader English Jadavpur)
	   Ananda Lal (Reader English Jadavpur)
	   Swapan Majumdar (Prof Comp Lit Jadavpur)
	   Ujjwal K Majumdar (ex-Prof Bengali U. Calcutta)

Jibananda Das: blurb Bio by Sukanta Chaudhuri

	Jibananda Das (1899-1954) is one of the foremost figures of modern
	Bengali poetry.  His work combines the substance of international
	modernism with the timeless experience of rural Bengal, and both
	these with the complex and disturbing patterns of his time.

	    Jibananda's poetry has made a major contribution to Bengali
	poetic idiom.  This makes his work specially challenging for the
	translator.  The sixty poems in this volume have been rendered by a
	panel of practised translators.  There is a substantial introduction
	and explanatory notes.

At the camp (tr. Indrani Haldar)

I present some lines from another translation, from Clinton B. Seely.
Haldar is somewhat more compact, and also closer to the original
("decoy-doe" rather than "doe-in-heat").


tr. Clinton Seely                                        tr. Indrani Haldar

Here, on the forest's edge, I have pitched camp.         I have struck camp near the forest here
All night long, in the pleasant southern breezes,        All night on the south wind
in the light of the moon in the sky,                     Under the moonlit sky
I hear the call of the doe in heat?                      I hear the call of a decoy-doe
whom is she calling?                                     Whom does she call?

Somewhere tonight the deer are being hunted.             Somwhere tonight a deerhunt is on.
The hunters came to the forest today?                    Hunters have entered the forest tonight
I too catch their scent                                  I too can almost smell them.
as I lie here on my campbed,                             Lying on my bed here,
wide awake                                               Sleep still delays
on this spring night.                                    On this night in spring.

The wonder of the forest is everywhere,                  The wonders of the forest all around,
an April breeze,                                         The spring wind like the taste
like the taste of the moon's rays.                                  of the moonlight's body.
All night long the doe calls in heat.                    The decoy-doe calls all night.
Deep in the forest somewhere, in places the moonlight does not reach,
                                        Somewhere in the deep forest, where there is no more moonlight,
all the stags hear her call;                             The stags hear her call;
they sense her presence,                                 Sensing her presence,
they move towards her.                                   They come towards her.
Tonight, on this night of wonder,                        On this night of wonders
their time for love has come.                            Their hour of love has come;
The sister of their hearts calls them through the moonlight         Their soul sister
from their forest cover                                  Calls to them from her forest lair in the moonlight
to quench their thirst, by smell, by taste.              In thirsty craving's solace- in scent- in taste!
Tonight, as if the forest were free of tigers,           It's as though no tiger stirred in the forest today.
no sharp fear, not even a shadow of doubt,               There is no sharp fear today in the stag's hearts,
fills the heart of those deer?                           No shade of doubt;
only                                                     There is only a thirst.
excitement.                                              Only romantic thrill.
Perhaps wonder awakens even in the cheetah's breast      Perhaps the leopard too marvels
at the beauty of the doe's                                       at the doe's fair face.
Tonight, on this night of spring,                        Lust, desire, yearning, love, dream
lust, longing, love, desire, dreams burst all around.             unpetal on all sides
This is my "nocturne."                                   Here is my nocturne.

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