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Steven Magee

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“পিতৃশ্রাদ্ধ করতে প্রতাপ শেষবার গিয়েছিলেন মালখানগরে। প্রতাপ শক্ত চরিত্রের মানুষ, সবাই তাকে তেজস্বী পুরুষ হিসেবে মানে, কিন্তু সেবার তিনি খুব কান্নাকাটি করেছিলেন। বাবার মৃত্যুর সঙ্গে সঙ্গে পূর্বপুরুষদের সঙ্গে সব যোগাযোগ ছিন্ন হয়ে গেল, মাটি থেকে উপড়ে তোলা হলো এক বর্ধিষ্ণু বৃক্ষের শিকড়। পূর্ববাংলার এই নদীময় প্রান্তর, এই মিষ্টি বাতাস, খেজুর রসের স্বাদের মতন ভোর, ঠাকুমার গল্পের আমেজমাখা সন্ধ্যা, এসব আর দেখা হবে না। এরপর থেকে কলকাতায় ভাড়াটে বাড়ির অন্ধকার ঘুপচি ঘরে চির নির্বাসন।”

Partition1947Bengal
Book:পূর্ব-পশ্চিম
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“Can’t say my Uttarpara ancestral home isn’t my homeland, I know unidentified bodies, their eyes plucked out, float by in the Ganga. Can’t say my aunt’s Ahiritola isn’t my homeland, I know abducted girls are bound and gagged in Sonagachi nearby. Can’t say my uncle’s at Panihati isn’t my homeland, I know who was killed, and where, in broad daylight. Can’t say my adolescent Konnagar isn’t my homeland, I know who was sent to cut whose throat. Can’t say my youth’s Calcutta isn’t my homeland, I know who threw bombs, set fire on buses, trams. Can’t say West Bengal isn’t my homeland, I’ve the right to be tortured to death in its lock-ups, I’ve the right to starve and have rickets in its tea gardens, I’ve the right to hang myself at its handloom mills, I’ve the right to become bones buried by its party lumpen, I’ve the right to have my mouth taped, silenced, I’ve the right to hear the leaders sprout gibberish, abuse, I’ve the right to a heart attack on its streets blocked by protestors, Can’t say Bengali isn’t my homeland.”

LovePoliticsSocietyHungryBengal
Book:ছোটোলোকের কবিতা
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“Because it begins to seem to me at such times that I am incapable of beginning a life in real life, because it has seemed to me that I have lost all touch, all instinct for the actual, the real; because at last I have cursed myself; because after my fantastic nights I have moments of returning sobriety, which are awful! Meanwhile, you hear the whirl and roar of the crowd in the vortex of life around you; you hear, you see, men living in reality; you see that life for them is not forbidden, that their life does not float away like a dream, like a vision; that their life is being eternally renewed, eternally youthful, and not one hour of it is the same as another; while fancy is so spiritless, monotonous to vulgarity and easily scared, the slave of shadows, of the idea, the slave of the first cloud that shrouds the sun... One feels that this inexhaustible fancy is weary at last and worn out with continual exercise, because one is growing into manhood, outgrowing one's old ideals: they are being shattered into fragments, into dust; if there is no other life one must build one up from the fragments. And meanwhile the soul longs and craves for something else! And in vain the dreamer rakes over his old dreams, as though seeking a spark among the embers, to fan them into flame, to warm his chilled heart by the rekindled fire, and to rouse up in it again all that was so sweet, that touched his heart, that set his blood boiling, drew tears from his eyes, and so luxuriously deceived him!”

LifeRealityFantasyDreams
Book:White Nights
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“It has been a thousand years since I started trekking the earth A huge travel in night’s darkness from the Ceylonese waters to the Malayan sea I have been there too: the fading world of Vimbisara and Asoka Even further—the forgotten city of Vidarva, Today I am a weary soul although the ocean of life around continues to foam, Except for a few soothing moments with Natore’s Banalata Sen. Her hair as if the dark night of long lost Vidisha, Her face reminiscent of the fine works of Sravasti, When I saw her in the shadow it seemed as if a ship-wrecked mariner in a far away sea has spotted a cinnamon island lined with greenish grass. “Where had you been lost all these days? ” yes, she demanded of me, Natore’s Banalata Sen raising her eyes of profound refuge. At the day’s end evening crawls in like the sound of dews, The kite flaps off the smell of sun from its wings. When all colours take leave from the world except for the flicker of the hovering fireflies The manuscript is ready with tales to be told All birds come home, rivers too, All transactions of the day being over Nothing remains but darkness to sit face to face with Banalata Sen.”

LoveDeathNatureBeautyBengal
Book:Banalta Sen
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“I Have Seen Bengal’s Face - Poem by Jibanananda Das Autoplay next video I have seen Bengal’s face, that is why I do not seek Beauty of the earth any more: I wake up in the dark And see the dawn’s magpie-robin perched under the parasol-like huge leaf Of the fig tree – on all sides I see mounds of leaves of Black plum – banyan – jackfruit – oak – pipal lying still; Their shadows fall on the spurge bushes on zedoary clumps; Who knows when Chand near Champa from his madhukar boat Saw such oaks – banyans – gamboge’s blue shades Bengal’s beauty incomparable. Behula too someday floating on raft on Gangur’s water – When the fullmoon of the tenebrous twelfth night died on the river’s shoal – Saw countless pipals and banyans beside the golden corn, Alas, heard the tender songs of shama – and one day going to Amara. When she danced like a torn wagtail in Indra’s court Bengal’s river field, wild violets wept at her feet like anklet bells.”

NatureBeautyBengalLove Nature
Book:Bengal the Beautiful
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“Contemptuous of all politicians, they were especially wary of a Bengali majority in any future federal constitution. If permitted to secure their rightful place in the governance of the country, Bengali politicians could join their disaffected counterparts in the non- Punjabi provinces to force a change in Pakistan’s Kashmir focused and pro- American foreign policy.”

BengalPakistani Establishment
Book:The Struggle for Pakistan: A Muslim Homeland and Global Politics
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“मैंने देखा है बंगाल का चेहरा इसलिए पृथ्वी का रूप देखने कहीं नहीं जाता, अँधेरे में जगे गूलर के पेड़ तकता हूँ, छाते जैसे बड़े पत्तों के नीचे बैठा हुआ है भोर का दयोल पक्षी-चारों ओर देखता हूँ पल्लवों का स्तूप जामुन, बरगद, कटहल, सेमल, पीपल साधे हुए हैं चुप्पी। नागफनी का छाया बलुआही झाड़ों पर पड़ रही है मधुकर(सौदागर, सती बेहुला की कथा का पात्र) के नाव से न जाने कब चाँद, चम्पा के पास आ गया है ऐसे ही सेमल, बरगद और ताड़ की नीली छाया से भरा पूरा है बगाल का अप्रतिम रूप। हाय, बेहुला ने भी देखा था एक दिन गंगा में नाव से नदी किनारे कृष्ण द्वादशी की चाँदनी में सुनहले धान के पास हज़ारों पीपल, बरगद वट में मन्द स्वर में खंजनी की तरह इन्द्रसभा में श्यामा(लोक संगीत) के कोमल गीत सुने थे, बंगाल के नदी कगार ने खेत मैदान पर घुँघरू की तरह रोये थे उसके पाँव।”

NatureBeautyBengalDeath Love
Book:Bengal the Beautiful
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