The Golden Boat
(SONAR TORI)

Rabindranath cited a verse from the Srimad Bhagavat Gita in illustrating this poem,

‘The feat will only be remembered, the world will discount the man’.

Sanskrit poet Bhartrihari and Tolstoy wrote that only true art will live for ever.

A popular Sanskrit verse reminds, mind, wealth, youth and life all pass, the doer of great deeds achieves immortality.

1 Clouds roar galore and the monsoons thicken. Desolate am I, seated on a river bank, no expectation. The paddy got harvested in stacks high and deep. River flows to the brim, sharp racing eddies sweep. Monsoon made its advent with the harvest at its peak.	4 Ahoy mate! Where do you sail, to what distant land? Could you please berth your boat on my side of the bank? Drift off where you need to; grant a favor as you please, Stop hither and pick a harvest with grace and ease, My gold hued paddy piled on this bank, pray do not miss.
2 On a small tract seated am I-company there is none, Twisting tortuous water’s rollicking in great fun. On the other bank trees hued ink black stand forlorn, The village is enveloped by clouds as morning wears on. Tract is small on my bank and company have I none.	5 Take all you want, get your boat plentifully laden, Have I more? Not really, stowed away every grain. Oblivious with what I owned in an epoch in time, Loaded all my treasure bit by bit, in nickels and dime, Could you now thoughtfully ferry me too? Do not decline!
3 Singing and rowing to my bank, who is the helmsman? Perchance I have known him, a look does confirm. He cruises away full mast, no side glance or turn, Wakes follow his boat and crash abeam, astern. Perchance I have known him, a look does confirm.	6 Spare room? Alas, no more! The vessel is really small. Freighted to its capacity, cannot carry an extra soul! Nimbus clouds across the sky continue to stroll. High and dry I am on the river bank, wistful of the port call, The golden boat floated off life’s cargo, riches and spoil.

URVASHI

Neither mother, daughter nor an exquisite spouse art thou,
Urvashi, the denizen in the garden of gods!
As evening descends on the meadow drawing the golden end
of her dress around her weary shape,
Thou lightest not an oil lamp in any bed chamber;
With faltering feet, tremulous bosom and downcast eyelids,
Smiling, thou dost not mount a marital bed,
in the hushed midnight;
Like the rise of eos in the eastern sky, unveiled are thou,
O thou without unease!

A flower self-blooming without a stem,
when didst thou blossom Urvashi?
Thou didst rise out of the churned sea in the primal dawn,
clasping in thine right hand the fount of ambrosia, the poison
chalice held in the other.
At thy feet broke the heaving ocean waves like a serpent,
charm stilled with a thousand hoods, in submission.
White as jasmine, dressed only in beauty, the lord of the gods
bent at thy feet, O thou without a blemish!

Wert thou ever a young girl, O Urvashi the eternal maiden?
In the dark chamber of the main, lonesome, in whose house
didst thou play with pearls and gems?
On a coral bed in a jewel lit room, baby smile unpierced by evil,
on whose lap didst thou sleep to the lullaby of the sea?
When thou didst wake into the world, thou wert a full blown damsel,
O thou youth personified!

Thou art the sweetheart of the universe for ages and eons,
O Urvashi, the paragon of beauty!
Sages break penance to offer the merit of communion at thy feet,
Struck with the shaft of thy glance the worlds stir with youth,
Thy inebriating fragrance is borne by the blind wind on all sides;
The ravenous poet roams tempted in spirit with impassioned song,
like a bee intoxicated with nectar.
Fluttering the end of thy dress, thou passest with the tinkle of the
ankle bells, swift as the lightning.

As thou dancest in the assembly hall of the gods, exuberant with joy,
O swaying, billowy Urvashi!
To measured music dance the lined waves of the sea,
To the top of the sheaves tremble the greenery of the earth,
From the necklace around thy breasts falls off the gem star,
on the lap of the sky,
The blood stream dances in the man's vein as he loses his senses,
his chest beats aloud,
On the distant horizon, thy girdle snaps on a sudden,
O thou without restraint!

On heaven's peak of sunrise, thou art the Aurora embodied,
O Urvashi, the charmer of the world!
The slenderness of thy form is washed with the tears of mankind,
Painted is the pink of thy feet with the heart blood of the universe,
O thou with your locks flung down and without a shred of clothing!
On the white lotus of the world's desire hast thou poised your red lotus
feet, ever so light!
Infinite is thy delight in a man's boundless limitless mind,
O thou the idol, the companion of dreams!

Hark! the earthlings are searching and pining on all sides for you,
O cruel and callous Urvashi!
Willst those primeval eras ever return to the pristine mother earth?
Wouldst then thou rise again from the shoreless, unplumbed
sea, wet tressed?
Thy beauteous form willst reappear first on the primal morn,
Thy limbs wouldst hurt from the lachrymose eyes of the universe,
dripping water from your loveliness!
All on a sudden the ocean will heave and roll to rapturous paeans,
never heard before.

Never, not again, that glorious star has set for ever,
Alas! Urvashi now dwelleth on the mounts of sunset!
That is why today in the midst of mirth in spring carnival,
A sigh of the heaviest separation comes laden with the wind.
When on the full moon night, a flute strikes a plaintive note,
The far distant memories mix with the peels of laughter,
Tears flow in flood and yet hope is rekindled.
O thou without bonds!

Note: Urvashi, a heavenly nymph, the beauty queen of the universe has less status than Venus or Aphrodite who were goddesses.
In beauty she would however compare or exceed the other models of beauty in literature and arts.

Tagore composed when he was 34 in 1895, in the prime of his youth. Greatest leaps of imagination and literary grace-almost unequalled
except by Sanskrit poets. But nearing 70 and in between, Rabindranath wrote with undiminished beauty and grace. This may be said of
him without any exaggeration. At 68, poem compositions in his novella "The Poem at the End" bear adequate testimony to this fact.
This poem was adjudged second best by readers after The Golden Boat.

The Tale of Birth
(JANMAKOTHA)

The boy summoning his mother asks:
“Golly! In which place did you me find?
I urge, where did you gather my kind?”
Mother in joy and in bemused tears,
Hugging the child close to her gears
Says, ‘A wish were you in my mind.’

Were you there in my playroom with dolls,
And in my thoughtful prayers of morning.
Have I made and unmade your whole being.
Were you there on the throne with the Lord,
Close to my heart, close to dear God,
The universal and personal, in the same mold.

In my eternal hope, and in my everlasting love,
In the hearts of my mother and my grand mom
And at the care of our deity in ancestral home,
Were you hidden among them, ages and eon.

When in my youth, I bloomed in a bud
You too were present, a subtle fragrance.
My young limbs, you clung to in close embrace,
Giving in all your grace and tenderness.

A darling of all our beloved gods,
You are ancient and yet you are new,
Like the sunlit morning dew.
You were washed in the tide of joyousness
From the world of ethereal dreaminess,
To come playfully in my waiting wings.

I gaze at you very intently,
Never comprehend the mystery,
You belonged to all, but became mine solely.
Entwining yourself in my body
Exclusively as my little buddy
Emerged on earth with a smile of beauty.

Perchance I may lose you here or there
I cling to you in imaginary fear,
And cry out when I do not find you near.
Can’t fathom if with adoration I snare,
My own two hands are feeble and bare,
This light of my life is a universal treasure.

PEEKABOO
(LUKOCHOORI)

In a bid to prank you with an antic, mom
On Champa1 tree, I may bud as a blossom,
At dawn on a twig among new leaves,
I playfully twiddle and tumble upon.

Then mother, you are sorely beaten,
Unable to figure my transformation,
You call on me, “Where are you my boy?”
I keep smiling on the tree, silent and coy.

Whatever chore during the day you take on,
I am able to see with my eyes open.
After your bath under the tree you pass,
Wet tresses flow on your shoulder down.
While you are on the way to your Puja2,
You will breathe the flower’s aroma.
Even then you will not realize it anent,
You are breathing your child’s body scent.

When everybody has finished midday meal,
You will relax and read from the Mahabharat3.
The shadow of the tree I am on, will fall
On you front and back, past window slat.
My own miniscule likeness shall I flutter
On the book at your hand, on its paper,
Hardly then you will realize, it is
Your child’s shadow mirroring in your eyes.

In the evening a lit lamp in your hand,
You will proceed to the cowshed.
I shall end my prank of playing a flower,
And gently drop before you on the bend.
I shall become your child again,
“Spin me a yarn”, indulgently shall I claim.
You will demand, “Naughty one, where have you been?”
I shall reply, “I am not revealing.”

1 Champa, very aromatic golden yellow flower of summer 2 Puja-worship
3 Mahabharat-Massive Sanskrit Epic of India original containing 100,000 verses
ET---Partha S. Bhattacharya 6/24/05