Banalata And Others

Nearly twenty years ago, Soumitra Chatterjee came our neck of the woods on the occasion of the Bengali New Year (Nabobarsho) to recite poetry. Towards the end of the recital came Jibananda Das's "Banalata Sen". The magic spell of Banalata was cast on me that evening.

A friend sent me a link to some mediocre to decent translations of Bengali poetry instead of the de rigueur "Happy New Year" in an e-mail today.Reading Nator er Banalata Sen brought back memories of a New Year from long ago.

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