Tagore eulogised Bengal in his poetry ... " Amar Shonar Bangla" (My Golden Bengal), 1906 cleary shows this. The word 'shonar' literally means 'made of gold', though in the song 'shonar' Bangla may be interpreted to either express the preciousness of Bengal or a reference to the colour of fields before harvest. The song was written during the period of 'Bangabhanga' (Partition of Bengal) to rekindle the unified spirit of Bengal. It is interesting to note that the first ten lines of this song were adopted in 1972 as the Bangladesh national anthem.
My Bengal of gold, I love you.
Forever your skies, your air set my heart in tune as if it were a flute.
In spring, Oh mother of mine, the fragrance from your mango groves makes me wild with joy.
Oh, what a thrill !
In autumn, oh mother mine, in the full blossomed paddy fields
I have seen sweet smiles spread all over.
Oh, what beauty, what shades, what affection and what tenderness !
What a quilt you have spread at the feet of the banyan trees and along the banks of the rivers !
Oh mother mine, words from your lips are like honey to my ears. Oh, what a thrill !
If sadness, dear mother mine, casts a gloom on your face, my eyes are filled with tears !
Reading the poetry of Jibanananda Das, however, is a different experience ... His poems have all the ingredients of the modern man's anguish: pain, despair, yearning, set against a familiar landscape of the eternal, the eternal in this case being his beloved birthplace of Barisal, East Bengal, now Bangladesh. In his poetry there is an overwhelming sense of longing to return — to that which is pure, to that which is the beginning, to that place which cannot be reached. Jibanananda's poetry becomes a search for awareness, for light in the darkness of modern existence, that is filled with half-truths, weariness and existentialist despair.
I share with you one of my favourite poems which celebrates his desire to return to Bengal through several births ... "Abar ashibo phire" (I'll come back again ... )
I'll come back again to river Dhansiri’s bank, to Bengal,
Perhaps not as a man, but as a white hawk or a shalik bird;
Perhaps as dawn crow, floating on the mist’s bosom to alight
In the shade of the jackfruit tree, in this autumn harvest land.
Or maybe I'll be a pet duck of a young girl, ankle-bells on her reddened feet,
Drifting on kalmi-scented waters all the day.
I’ll come this way again, for love of Bengal’s rivers, fields, crops ...
To this green kindly shore of Bengal, moistened by river Jalangi’s waves.
Perhaps you’ll see a glass-fly soar on the evening breeze,
Perhaps you'll hear a barn owl call from the branch of a shimul tree;
Perhaps a little child scatters rice-grains on the courtyard grass,
Or on the Rupsa’s turgid stream a boy steers his dinghy
With torn white sail — you'll see white herons flying through red clouds
to their nests, in the dark. Among them all is where you will find me.
Photos : The Net
Last year, on this day, I took you on a trip to Kolkata. This year let's go somewhere, far away from the city, to explore another facet of Bengal ... the rural Bengal ! 
Thank you, for sharing the poem ... a reflection of our times !
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A very charming presentation. Unfortunately times have changed and the rural Bengal of yesteryears are no longer there. It may be found only in the imaginations of poets and in our nostalgic dreams. Jibanananda seems to have been aware of this. And so I wrote -
JIBANANANDA*
Is neither dim nor despondent
Everything is fine.
The harvested fields bedewed
No beast grazes for grasses green
Their eyes keen by an acquisitive urge
Packs of ravenous wolves
Prowl around our bountiful barns
Our daughters caress no pet but themselves
Nor our sons abandon themselves in play
They navigate the turbid waters of our time.
The only love that gave us peace
Is now loud and lures many
None would seek something
Beyond the bounds of this beautiful body
Here everything money can buy.
The owl doesn’t curse the old moon
To catch its prey
The lemmings themselves are dying
Their carrions spreading death
Even amongst the carrion-eaters
None has any time
To listen to the distant call of a kite
Nor would anyone repine
The death of those dreamy eyes
In the deepening gloom of night
Death itself holds no promise of bliss -
The kiss of a peaceful sleep
The dream of another life
In the land of our birth for one more time.
*A modern Bengali poet.
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Thank you ... will check out the site !!!
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i enjoyed reading about this. I am from mumbai myself. the closest I got to nature recently was with an owl in a friends room in a mumbai flat. imagine an owl in mumbai .One of our friends put up the photos at a website at http://www.dubbagol.com/Amazing/An_Owl_In_A_Mumbai_House/
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Lovely write..Beautiful poem and awesome pics...Enjoyed this blog....Shubho Nobo Borsho to you and your family......yash
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