BONOLATA  SEN  by Jibananda Das

Translation:

Subhendu Ghosh

For thousands of years I have been wandering this earth

Through dark nights from Ceylonese seas to the Malayan waters

Much have I travelled; Bimbhisara’s and Asoka’s misty hearth

I had been there; the remoter realms of Vidharbhan quarters;

Tired as I am, all around life’s din foam and fountain,

Some solace that I ever found was in Natore’s Bonolata Sen.

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Her hair recalling remoter Bidisha’s night

Her face a sculpture of Sravasthi; like in the deep seas

A mariner with a broken mast and nothing right  

Grasslands amid cinnamon isles as he spots and sees

I saw her in that likeness in the darkness; ‘how could you so long refrain?’

Raising her refuging eyes, said Natore’s Bonolata Sen.

With the fading of the day the evening descends

 Amid music of the dew; the eagle wipes out traces of the sunlight from its wings;

The night subduing all colours around arranges the parchments

For the storytime lit by fireflies aglow;

All birds return to their nests, all rivers close all accounts with men;

There remains the darkness and ever waiting, face to face, Bonolata Sen.

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