The poet of beautiful Bengal, the hunter of darkness, the poet of solitude Jibananda Das (1899-1954) is the most romantic poet in modern Bengali literature of the 20th century. He blends myth and mystery in his evergreen poem ‘Banalata Sen’, where he takes refuge from his weary soul. The poet, a soul exhausted from worldly life, seeks peach and heavenly refuge for thousands of years on earth and Banalata Sen of Nator, a country-land of Bengal, blesses his soul with such bliss.
The poet-narrator is a tired soul who has been wandering the paths of the earth for thousands of years. He wanders from the Ceylon Sea to the Malaya Sea, the gray land of Emperor Bimbisara and Asoka and the too far city of Vidarbha. He is tired of the foaming ocean of life and gets momentary happiness from it. As the poet says:
I, a weary soul, surrounded by the foaming ocean of life,
Banalata Sen de Nator gave him momentary happiness.
Her hair is like the ancient Vidisha night, her face is like the enchanting carving of the famous sculptor Sravasti. The poet is a rudderless sailor who gets lost in the foaming ocean of life and finds refuge in his nest like eyes. She gives shelter to the poet as the rudderless sailor, lost and hopeless in the distant ocean he hopes to be rescued by seeing an island covered with green grass. He has bird’s nest eyes that absorb the tiredness of the poet saying: “Where have you been so long?” It seems that she also waited with her heart, thirsty for her, for the poet. It is what the poet craves; it is what a human being desires from his beloved. She is the one who can absorb the weariness of thousands of years, who can be the sanctuary of the kestrel after the long sunny day.
All tiredness becomes peace and harmony with the soft fall of the afternoon. Then the kestrel wipes the sunbeam from its wings and rests in its nest. All the colors of the earth merge into a manuscript with the blinking of the fireflies. All the birds return home, all the rivers return to the ocean, all the procedures of life end, and then there is nothing left but darkness. This time the poet wants to sit in front of his beloved idolatry.
Jibanananda Das is excellent in the use of imagery. ‘Nest like eyes’, ‘land of green grass’, ‘sparkling ocean’, ‘carving of Sravasti’, ‘rudderless crew’, ‘sound of falling dew’, ‘smell of sun’, ‘flashes of fireflies’, ‘darkness’ Everyone comes alive in this poem with the touch of his heart.
Compare her eyes with the ‘nest’ that is the peaceful refuge of the bird. ‘The land of green grass’ indicates the hope of rescue. ‘Sravasti carving’ is the perfection of carving. The ‘sound of falling dew’, the ‘sparkle’ of fireflies are blessings of love. Like the island of green grass in the eye of a lost sailor, the poet wants a sanctuary in the ‘nest-like eyes’ of her who is his refuge in the ‘foaming ocean of his life’.
On the other hand, ‘foamy ocean’, ‘rudderless crew’, ‘smell of the sun’ all refer to exhaustion, weariness and hopelessness. Although darkness is the end of everything, the poet chooses darkness as the time to sit face to face with it. He says:
All the birds return, all the rivers, all the procedures of life end.
Only darkness remains, to sit in front of Banalata Sen.
Darkness is the end of everything except dreams. Why does the poet search in the dark and why does he want to sit before her in the dark? Does she stay in his dream? Are you looking for his dream or yourself? Who knows, she may not exist anywhere except in his dream, or she may be the embodiment of his very being.