বনলতা সেন | Bonolota Sen | Jibanananda Das kobita | Nahid Niloy Abritti

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Banalata Sen (Bengali: বনলতা সেন) is a Bengali poem written in 1942 by the poet Jibanananda Das that is one of the most read, recited and discussed poems of Bengali literature. The title of this lyric poem is a female character referred to by name in the last line of each of its three stanzas. A draft of the poem was also discovered that widely differs from the final version. Poet Jibanananda Das was a quiet person, who preferred to live in obscurity. Until the discovery of his diaries in the mid-1990s, it was considered unlikely that he could have been in love with a woman, with or without the name of Banalata Sen. However, Banalata Sen of Natore, a tiny town in the Rajshahi area of what was then Bengal, has become an emblem of feminine mystery as well as beauty and love.

The poem consists of three stanzas each comprising six lines composed in the Bengali metrical pattern Aksherbritta or Poyar. The title of this lyric poem, Banalata Sen, is a female character referred to by name in the last line of each of its three stanzas. The poem is self-narrated by an unnamed traveller. Banalata Sen is the name of a woman whom the poem describes as being from the town of Natore, a town in Bangladesh.

In the first stanza the traveller describes seeing her after having wandered upon the earth over thousands of years. The narrator says that it has been a thousand years since he started trekking the earth. He describes it as a long journey in night's darkness from the Ceylonese waters to the Malayan seas. From this geographical expanse he goes on to the extent of time, saying that, in the course of his wanderings he has traversed the fading world of Bimbisara and Ashoka. He adds that he went further, to the forgotten city of Vidharbha. Finally he speaks of himself as now being a weary soul although the ocean of life around continues to foam and adds that in the meanwhile he had a few soothing moments with Natore's Banalata Sen.

In the second stanza the traveller describes Banalata Sen. First he compares her hair with the dark night of long-lost Vidisha. Then he compares her face with the fine sculpture of Sravasti. Then the traveller-narrator recollects that when he saw her in the shadow it was like a mariner whose ship was wrecked in a faraway sea spotting verdant land among barren islands. In the first encounter Banalata Sen, raising her comforting eyes, inquires of him, “Where had you been lost all these days?”

In the third stanza the traveller returns from geography and history and recalls Banalata Sen with emotion. He says that when at the day's end evening crawls in like the sound of dews and the kite shakes off the smell of sun from its wings; and, then, when all colours take leave from the world except for the flicker of the hovering fireflies as all birds come home and rivers retire, a time comes when all transactions of the day are done. Then nothing remains but darkness when the traveller would like to sit face-to-face with Banalata Sen and share with her his ballad of stories.

The poet-narrator proceeds by alluding to different mythological and ancient persons, places and events. He describes having wandered from the Ceylonese ocean to the seas of Malaya, having travelled in Ancient India in the times of Emperor Bimbisara, and centuries later, in the times of Ashoka the Great. He describes having wandered in darkness in the ancient cities of Vidarbha and Vidisha, yet, for his tired soul, the only moment of peace in any age was with Banalata Sen of Natore.

The lyric Banalata Sen is the most representative of the essence of Jibanananda's poetry and exemplifies his use of imagery. The weary traveller is an interactive motif in his poetry. The poem itself uses four key images comprehensively, namely the darkness, flowing water, passage of time, and a woman. Jibanananda progressively develops these same four images throughout the poem, metamorphosing these from remoteness to intimacy, dimness to distinction and from separation to union.
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