Banalata Sen I বনলতা সেন | Jibanananda Das | Shimul Mustapha

#bengaljukebox
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To celebrate 50 years of Bangladesh’s independence, Bengal Foundation organised Srijone O Shekore, a 5-day arts festival, from 14 to 18 December 2021, at Bengal Shilpalay, Dhaka. Supported by BRAC Bank, the festival featured performing arts, visual art, crafts, books, film, readings, and events for children. Over 300 singers-musicians-dancers-craftspersons-artists performed on stage and engaged in various kinds of programming at the festival, over the five days.
On the opening day of the Srijone o shekore arts festival, Shimul Mustapha’s riveting recitation of Jibanananda Das’ poem Banalata Sen enthralled the audience. Raised in a cultural milieu, Mustapha was drawn to the theatre arts during the political protests in the restive late eighties. His powerful internalisation of poetry, and the nuanced dramatisation and superb articulation in his delivery, continues to captivate audiences.
One of the most read, recited and discussed poems in Bengali literature, Banalata Sen is considered to represent the essence of Jibanananda's poetry and exemplify his extensive use of imagery. The title of this lyric poem is a female character referred to by name in the last line of each of its three stanzas. Banalata Sen was composed in 1934, at a time when Jibanananda Das had just lost his teaching job in Kolkata. It was first published in the December 1935 issue of the poetry magazine Kavita, edited by poet Buddhadeva Bose. In the poem, Jibanananda describes himself as a lone traveller, roaming the seas and ancient cities for a thousand years and emerging through the dark ages. His weary soul finds a moment’s peace with Banalata Sen of Natore. The poem continues, describing the beauty of Banalata Sen. Although popularly regarded a romantic lyric, the poet's historical sense of human existence is unmistakably the underlying essence in the poem.
Jibanananda Das was born in 1899 in the district-town Barishal, in Bangladesh. He finished college in Barishal and then completed MA in English from the Calcutta University in 1921. His first poem was published in 1919 in a magazine in Barishal; first collection of poems, Jhara Palak (`Fallen Feathers') came out in 1927. Buddhadeva Bose was the first to discuss Jibanananda's poetry in Pragati. Later on, Buddhadeva and his poetry magazine Kavita played a seminal role in establishing Jibanananda as perhaps the most influential of the post-Tagore poets. Many poems, and all the prose fictions that Jibanananda wrote were discovered after his death in 1954.
Jibanananda Das's lyricism is unparalleled in Bengali literature. His early poems are vivid, eloquent celebrations of the beauty of Bengal; his later works, written in the 1940 and '50s, are darker, comments on political issues and current affairs like the Second World War, the Bengal Famine of '43 and Hindu-Muslim riots at the time of Partition (Jibanananda Das: Selected Poems, Chidananda Dasgupta, Penguin, 2006). While he is best known for poetry that reveals a deep love of nature and rural landscapes, tradition and history, Jibanananda is also strikingly urban, and introspective, his work centring on themes of loneliness, depression and death. He was a master of word-images, and his unique poetic idiom drew on tradition but was startlingly new. His best known collections of poetry include Banalata Sen (1942) and Rupasi Bangla (Beautiful Bengal, written in 1934 but published in 1957). Jibanananda died in a tram accident in 1954. In 1955, his Shreshtha Kabita (Best Poems) received the Sahitya Akademi Award.

[@arefinhoosain654]

মাশাআল্লাহ। মন্ত্র মুগ্ধের মতো শুনে যাই। কিন্তু মন ভরে না।

[@anitadatta1303]

অসাধারণ আবৃত্তিতে জীবনানন্দ দাশের 'বনলতা সেন ' প্রাণ ছুঁয়ে গেলো ।

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অসাধারণ

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অপূর্ব আবৃত্তি ব্যারিটন ভয়েসে! জীবনানন্দ দাসেরই “রুপসী বাংলা” কবিতাটি শোনার আবদার জানিয়ে রাখলাম সম্ভব হলে।

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আনিসুল ইসলাম স্যারের আবৃওি সেরা।

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ভয়েস বালো কিন্তু আবৃত্তির প্রান নেই।
ধ্যাত!

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Excellent