Everyday and every night I can see in my mind’s eye,
The golden paddy and the fleshy palm leaves,
Swaying against a dark monsoon sky.
Rain tapping on huts and stones,
Muddy roads soft and slow,
A sudden Nor’ western wind finds its way to my hamlet,
Step by step,
Once more.
Thousand bamboo leaves shake in the breeze
As seagulls, sparrows, and pigeons soar high,
On a mid-afternoon summer sky,
The fragrance of wet muddy lanes,
Fill my nostrils,
Oh beloved land of mine!
Smells of honey, mahua, and mustard seeds,
In damp and rusty coves,
Glide by in wet monsoon rain,
As the whistle fades away,
Of a distant suburban train.
Mango buds dropping from trees,
Coconut leaves on dusty roads,
For me it is my holy ground,
My land,
The only place where my poem
And my soul can be found.
Two gray ducks swim as the water shakes,
Beneath the large banyan tree on a dirty lake,
Where women come to wash their clothes!
Every passing star brings me news,
Of my beloved land,.
I see the phantom shadows of golden paddy, of hashnuhannah and
Of fragrant white jasmine leaves.
This is my pilgrimage,
Bengal, my holy land,
Where palash, shimul, coconut and mangoes bloom,
With every drop of juicy sweetness of jaggery and rice cakes,
Mingled with the baul’s melancholy tune,
Where the rising sun is like a ball of fire,
With its scorching rays,
Waiting for that cool monsoon spray.
Peasants make their rugged way,
Where every boatman sings of love,
And every festival of color of spring is gay!
Where Chandidas and Chaitanya spread their songs of love,
Where Darbeshes and fakirs lay peacefully in their coves.
Further, down my memory lane,
I smell of Sundari trees,
The vast deep estuaries that run into the Bay,
Where my soul can drink
Draughts of sweet-smell,
Sound and color,
Where the boats,
Sliding amid gold and silk,
Open their vast arms
To embrace the glory of a pure sky,
Trembling with eternal heat.
Where Padma and Meghna quietly flow,
And the gliding Ganga plunges into the dark Bay,
My subtle spirit
Caressed by the rolling waves
Of honey, coconut oil and mustard seeds
Of bakul, of champak and of bamboo reeds.
Autumn brings a different note,
A vast field of kashphool stands before me,
From here to heaven’s end,
The field is as white as a lady’s lace,
The Goddess, the killer of demons, and Id-ul-fitr is here!
Murmur the kashphools as they leap and bend.
The rocky Purulia beneath the Ashwin sky,
From green to yellow pass,
Swaying in the autumnal breeze,
As the cool breeze of Magh fingers through the grass.
Calm and pure on the midday wintry sky,
Flies one gray dove white and pure,
Into the graying wintry sky,
Where the land meets the bay,
I open my eyes,
I shut them,
And I dream,
The dove must be reaching my home,
My heaven, my land, my pilgrim,
Reaching my beloved Bengal,
Cheerful and sanguine in its journey,
Into the damp monsoon rain,
Into paddy fields,
Into hashnuhannah, jasmine, bakul,
Into the Sundari trees,
Where crocodiles and tigers
Carry the moonlight on their back
As they lay in the bay,
Where the homeless finds her home,
In the eternal bounty,
Of Sunlight villages,
Of jasmine leaves,
Of love,
And of hope.
