Please read these as simply prose translations to aid your studies, not as poetry, for that sense is not well brought out. For that you have to rely on what was said in class. Those who were not in class cannot assume this is an adequate equivalent.
Bhasha
Iswarchandra Gupta
Prose summary translation with comments
Alas, the nation is filled with sorrow
For all have hatred to the languae of
the nation. [A pun involved – nation – Desh, hatred – dwesh]
Language floats on immense seas of
sorrow
It seems not to have any hope of life.
[there is a general
discussion of the fact that the Bengali language is not cared for,
and is insulted]
Pandits regret
mentally
The discontinuation of
shastric studies [this of course fudges over the fact that shastric
studies were in Sanskrit]
Dharma and truth
jointly leave the country
Dharmabhed [again a
pun, meaning religious discord] the Vedas decay, and pointless the
sorrow over that
Smriti is forgotten,
how little its memory is left [pun again – smriti means memory and
also the post Vedic literature]
Sruti [the Vedas –
texts one leanrs by hearing] die from te hearing of all
The separate path of
tantra, who knows that path
If tarka [formalised
debate] becomes ku-tarka [vulgarisation of debates] who accepts that
tarka
Various tricks are
played by calling the Puranas old [puran means old, past]
The mind is not on the
Geeta, what fruit will you get [ a reference to the Geeta's most
famous comment, abut doing one's work without desiring results -- “ma
faleshu kadachan”]
Thus are the shastras
being killed [note the merging of Sanskrit and Bangla, of ancient,
Hindu India with modern Bengal, ignoring the coming of Islam, and its
role in medieval Bengal, including in the rise of the Bengali
language, much patronised by Muslim rulers]
[Then he moves to
modern times]
Seeing the twisted
view of people to bhasha
How much can oe write
in news papers
Harken o countrymen
leaving aside hatred
Respect each other's
papers
If you know the
national knowledge you get much pleasure
Why be blind when you
have bright eyes
Jnan [knowledge] vidya
[education] happiness, all are available from that
So take care of it
He whose will has
created all
let him do good for
newspapers
Final comments -- the
idea that newspapers can take the role today that shastras had in the
past – is an indication of the limited vision for Bengali, in fact.
Compare
Michael Madhusudan
Dutt
Bongbhasha
While the previous
poem was written in poyar, the age old style, and with the pun as its
main formal device, making serious issues appear in a light manner,
here you have a perfect sonnet. Yet there is the shift. It is not a
love poem, as is the Petrarchan, and follows the form of three
quartrains and a couplet, as in Shakespeare.
I canot try to
translate it as a sonnet.
It begins with an
invocation to Bengal, saying that she has many jewels in ehr stores.
But the poet, beig folish, had ignored them, ad had travelled abroad,
in beggar's guise, seeking the wealth of others in his madness.
He then says:
I spent many days
[meaning years] leaving all joy
In hunger,
sleeplessness, giving up body and soul
In failed worshipping
of that which is not to be worshipped
I toyed with moss,
leaving aside the lotus ponds
When the goddess of
home said in my dream
O my son, with the
array of jewels in your mother's lap
Why then this beggar
like dress of yours?
O thou ignorant,
return, return home.
I obeyed the
injunction in happiness, and found duly
The mine full of
jewels, that is the mother language.
Rangalal Bandyopadhyay
Freedom Song
Again written in a
modified poyar
Rhetorical questions,
where the answer is of course contained within the questions
Who wishes to livef
without freedom?
Who will wear the
slave's chains on the feet?
To remain a slave for
aeons is like living in hell
Even a day's freedom
is heavenly by contrast
When these words
awaken in one's mind
That khsatriya sons
will become slaves of pathans
Then one's heart burs
in anger
Ad one brooks no delay
in putting out the fre
O listen, O listen to
the trumpets
They call out, dress
for war, o dress for war
Come one and all for
the battle
Keep your ancestral
tradition, the deeds of ksatriyas
Rajputana is our
motherland
Blood flows over the
entire body
His life is
successful, his prowess is successful
Who gives up one's
life to save the country
Our place is in the
soft lap of the God of death
Come we will lie in
front of his face
Who says the court of
death god is a place of fear?
The Vedas say Yama is
a kin of the kshatriyas
Remember the number of
heroes in the Ikhsvaku clan
Who lay down their
lives to aid country and otehrs
Rememer the
descriptions of their deeds
Then which kshatriya
son will turn away from glory
So hasten to the
battlefield
Their is none to
compare with he who dies in defence of one's land
Even if in killing the
Yavanas we fail to get Chittor
We shall be blessed by
heavenly pleasure, come brothers.
Comments – in formal
terms, traditional, old and jaded. In content, shifts the enemy of
the nation from te real British to the Yavanas. This does two things.
Religion rather than conquerort. And silence about today's oppressor.
Result – a Hindu nation, and a Hindu nationalism.
Jyotirindranath Tagore
Chal Re Chal Sabe
Come all ye children
of India
The Motherland calls.
In brave steps, with
te pride of masculinity
Serve the good of the
country
Who but sons can
Remove the poverty of
the mother?
Arise all, awaken and
say – O my mother
I submit my life to
thy feet
Worship by the same
faith
Utter the same mantra
Education, initiation,
goal, let all be one
Sing all the same
song.
Seek from shores to
shores to bring
Ever new knowledge
In new form, new
enthusiasm
Create newer tunes.
Look not at popularity
nor popular
disapproval
Give life to all
That is good, eternal
and true.
Hindus and Muslims
Forget sectarian
conflicts
Move together, along
one path
Flying high the flag
of unity.
As it can be seen, the
end here has an appeal to religious unity, and does not have the
purely backward look of Rangalal's poem. Its modernity, however, has
the same problem as most attempts at modernity, insofar as it is a
masculinist/patriarchal modernity. Sons alone can free the
motherland. Daughters are evidently passive.
My Country
Dwijendralal Roy
D.L. Roy is among the
foremost of the Bengali patriotic song/poem writers. This song is one
of his most famous songs, and its invocations outline the strengths
and contradictions both.
O my Bengal! O my
mother! O my nurse! Country mine!
Why o mother these dry
eyes, why the rough hair thine?
Why, mother, thy seat
on the dust, why this tattered dress?
When three hundred
millions call out o country mine?
The land where great
souled Buddha arose to free the door of liberation
He to whom half the
world pays respects even now
She whose fame was
spread by Ashoka from Gandhar to land's end
Thou, O mother, are
their mother, thou art their land.
Once, her victorious
armies conquered Lanka with ease
Once, her golden
argosy travelled across the Indian ocean
She whose children set
up colonies in China-Japan-Tibet
Why must she have this
dusty seat, why does she have this tattered dress?
Where arose in stately
tones sweet songs in Nimai's voice
Raghumani gave dictums
of law, Chandidas sang his songs
Pratapaditya waged
war, thou O Mother, are that blessed land
Blessed are we if
these veins carry a trace of their blood.
Mother, though your
divine light is covered by a Darkness
The clouds will burst,
a new splendour will shine on thine brow
We shall end your
poverty mother, Human are we, not sheep
O my Goddess! O my
worship! O my paradise! My land.
What sorrow, what
poverty, what shame, what hardship
When three hundred
million throats cry out – O my land.
As it can be seen, Roy
is invoking nationalism most clearly. In doing so, he is not simply
talking about people and their rights. He is arguing that Bengal was
historically a superior land, one that produced Great Men. It is
noteworthy that class, caste, community all get intertwined. All te
greats are men. And there is a switching between Bengal and India. If
you insist on using modern locations, then Buddha was a Nepali and
Ashoka a Bihari. Certainly not Bengalis. And the whole rhetoric is
one that says, in effect, that Bengal should have been a ruling
country, not a ruled one. There is no contradiction felt by the
writer, when he says that Bengal is in a sorrowful state, and as to
be rescued by her sons, and in the same breath sings that her sons
had once colonised other lands (which is not correct. The Vijaya
Simha myth is a well known myth but still a myth, while sons of
Bengal having colonised China, Japan and Tibet is a figment of his
imagination). All the great one's invoked are non Muslims. This is
crucial. Bengali nationalism is about excluding the Bengali Muslims.
Who of course constituted the majority of Bengalis. It is necessary
to understand the full politics over the Bengal Partition and the
anti-partition agitation. It was not merely agitation to keep Bengal
united, but also to keep the Hindu bhadralok domination intact. That
was why there was not just opposition to splitting the province, but
also to such things as setting up a University in Dhaka, setting up a
High Court in Dhaka, etc. Then and later, Hindu Bengali nationalism
rejected equality for Muslims, something highlighted in Jaya
Chatterjee's books – Bengal Divided, and Spoils of Partition.
Bharat Lakshmi
Atul Prosad Sen
arise, O Lakshmi of
India, arise, she who was worshipped by the world in early days
Destroy all sorrow,
all poverty, vanquish the shame of India
Leave, o leave your
bed of sorrows, put on
Again the dress of
lotus and golden rice
Mother, take us in
your bosom, hold a cloth to our eyes
Three hundred million
women and men are crying at your feet
O Kamala, there is not
pilot in this sorrow ridden India
We travellers are
frightened, at the view of the upheaving dark ocean
The ship will go in a
positive direction again
In fresh ardour, at
the touch of your feet.
Three hundred million
women and men are crying at your feet
O Kamala, there is not
pilot in this sorrow ridden India
Fill again the
crematorium that is India with groves where birds sing
Smash hatred and
jealousy, fill with loving humming of bumblebees
Do away with sinful
forces, restore the places of worshipped
To make India clean
and filled with virtue.
Three hundred million
women and men are crying at your feet
O Kamala, there is not
pilot in this sorrow ridden India.
This is more an
invocation to the motherland. Yet, despite the quite different tone,
here too the land is visualised in Hinduised manner. The difference
is, we do not see a comparison with other lands and an insistence
that India/Bengal must be supreme. The stress is on virtue. Virtue,
it is assumed, will lead to India's regeneration. Open call for
independence is not articulated.
