39th death anniversary of Polli Kabi

Aminul Islam: The 39th death anniversary of Polli Kabi Jasimuddin, who created an unpretentious appeal of rural Bengal and epitomized Bengali`s folk life, is being observed today in a befitting manner.

Jasimuddin was born in the village of Tambulkhana in Faridpur District on 1 January 1903 in the house of his maternal uncle. His father, Ansaruddin Mollah, was a school-teacher and Mother Amina Khatun (Rangachhut). Jasimuddin received early education at Faridpur Welfare School.

He matriculated from Faridpur Zilla School in 1921. Jasimuddin completed IA from Rajendra College in 1924. He obtained his BA degree in Bengali from the University of Calcutta in 1929 and his MA in 1931.

Jasimuddin`s poetic prowess developed early. As a college student, he wrote the poem "Kabar" (Grave). The poem, a dramatic monologue of an old man talking to his grandson in front of his wife`s grave, was included in school textbooks while Jasimuddin was still a student at university.

From 1931 to 1937, Jasimuddin worked with Dinesh Chandra Sen as a collector of folk literature. Jasimuddin is one of the compilers of Purbo-Bongo Gitika (Ballads of East Bengal).

He collected more than 10,000 folk songs, some of which has been included in his song compilations Jari Gaan and Murshida Gaan. He also wrote voluminously on the interpretation and philosophy of Bengali folklore.

In 1938 he joined the University of Dhaka as lecturer. He left the university in 1944 to join the Department of Information and Broadcasting. He continued working there, until his retirement as Deputy Director in 1962.

In 1969 Jasimuddin was awarded the DLitt by Rabindra Bharati University. He also won several awards, including Ekushey Padak (1976) and Swadhinata Dibas Puroshkar (posthumous, 1978). Jasimuddin died in Dhaka on March 14 in 1976 and was buried in his own village.

In this connection Faridpur district administration and Faridpur Jasim Foundation have jointly chalked out a program at poet`s ancestral home at village Gobindapur in the outskirts of the district town.

The district administration and Jasim Foundation along with other cultural and literary organisations in the morning placed floral wreaths at the tomb of the poet adjacent to the home of poet situated on the bank of dried up river Kumar.

A discussion meeting on the poet will be held beside the tomb site. Later on, a Doa and Milad mahfil will be held for the salvation of the departed soul of the poet.

`Kabar`, first published in 1929 in Rakhali (Pastoral Poems), was as a text for the Matriculation Examination of Calcutta University while Jasim Uddin was still a student of I A class.

Here, under the pomegranate tree, is your grandmother`s grave;
For thirty years my tears have kept it green.
She was a little doll-faced girl when she came to my horne,
And she wept to be done with the play ofher childhood days.

Returned from my travelling onee,
I suddenly knew She had been in my thoughts all the time.
Like the dawn her golden face would blind my eyes,
And from that day I lost myselfamong smallj oys of hers.

There along that path I`d take the plough to the fields
And, leaving, would turn
For a last look at her to take with me.

How she`d smile, my long-wed sister-in-Iaw, because of this!

When she went to her father`s house she said, touching my feet,
`Do not forget to visit me soon at the village of `Ujan-toli.`
So when I sold melons at market I saved a few coins
And bought her a neeklace ofbeads, tobaceo and toothpowder.
(And what`s sofunny in that, my lad?)

How happy your grandmother was when she got these small gifts;
If only you could have seen her fingering her nose-ring.
She said, `Y ou have come after so many days;
I have beeil waiting in tears,
Watehing the path for you,` smiling now.

When we parted for a mere few days you couldll`t console her;
I wo nd er how she sleeps in her grave in this lonely place?
Fold your hands, grandson, and pray:
`Corne, oh merciful God,
Let Paradise descertd for my grandmother.`
Empty the life I endured when she left me;
Yet it seems each one I embraced here has gone,
Following her to that distant land.
A hundred graves are carved on the stone ofmy heart;
I get con~used counting the number, computing it over and over
again.

These wrinkled hands that hold the spade
Have buried so many beloved faces under hard earth
That I have come to love it, press it to my heart.
Come, kneel and pray, grandson;
Perhaps tears will relieve this pain.

Here sleeps your father, and here your mother sleeps:
Still your tears, while I tell you their story.

One April morning my boy called out,
`Father, I cannot go to the fields today.`
I spread out a mat on the floor for hirn, said `Sleep, my Son.`
How could I know that this would be his last slumber?

A clean coffin I made hirn, and as I carried him here
`Where are you taking my father?` you followed crying.
I could not answer, my little son,
All the words in the world turned away grieving.

Night and day your mother`s tears were unceasing,
Clasping your father`s yoke and plough in both hands.

For sorrow the leaves fell from the forest trees,
The winds of April wailed in the empty rice-fields;
And villagers passing along that path wiped their cyes.
Even the leaves they trod underfoot crumpled and died.
From their stall the two bullocks regarded the unploughed fields
While your mother clung to their necks with heart-broken sobs
Till it seemed the whole village would drown
In oceans ofher weeping.

Perhaps the tears of that lovely girl
Found a path to the land of the dead.
In the morning ofher life she longed for evening;
Ah, poor girl, she wove her own shroud with her hands.

Before her death she summoned you to her:
My child, she said, my greatest pain is
Leaving you motherless in this world,
My darling, my jewel, my son.
What blessings she gave you!

Then to me, `Over my grave hang my husband`s wide wicker
sun-hat;
It will swing in the wind.`
Long ago that hat fell and mixed with the dust.
But the pain in my heart still cries out
For these two that sleep in the shade.

How lovingly the tree-boughs bend above;
The firc-fly maidens of evening light lamps
And the crickcts make music with small beIls tinkling.
Fold your hands, grandson and pray: `0 come, eternal God,
Let Paradise des ce nd now for father and mother.`

Here is that fair little maiden, your sistcr`s grave.
We gavc her in marriage to a high-caste merchant`s family;
They clid not love such a darling girl, thcy punished her,
Not with blows, but more cruelly, with words.

Message on message she sent me:
Grandfather, come tomorrow,
Take me to the land ofmy people For one or two days.

The heartless father-in-law let her come one winter at last;
Her face was pale, a smile no longer bloomed there
. Some days she passed by her parents` grave
Till cleath`s flute called her away, and here I made her grave.

See how softly the grass and forest flowers caress her;
The wild doves sing her litany.
Fold your hands, grandson, and pray:
`Let Paradise descend for my unloved sister.`

Here lies my youngest child of seven years,
A brilliant rainbow bursting the gates ofParadise open.
Who knows what her thoughts were
Losing her mother so young?
When I looked in her face
Your grandmother came to my mind,
And I clasped her to me
"While tears washed the colour from the sky.

Returning from market one day
I found her stretched out in the dust
As if she had fallen asleep,
Hugging her doll, tired of play.
The black cobra that bit her
Had slithered away in the bush.

How bitter my tears were, laying my darling to bed in the grave.
Go soft, do not speak, little grandson, lest we wake her.
Slowly, dig slowly, slowly, let me see
How my heaven on earth lies sleeping
Under the black-baked bitter soil.

The warm-coloured sunset has kissed the fields
And great is my desire to hug the earth around me elose today.
The call to prayer floats from the mosque;
Let us fold our hands, little grandson, and pray:
`0 come, eternal God, let Paradise descend for our loved ones.`

risingbd/Mar 14, 2015/Aminul/Mukul