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Jibanananda Das | |
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.jpg) Jibanananda Das | |
| Born | Jibanananda Das (1899-02-17)17 February 1899 |
| Died | 22 October 1954(1954-10-22) (aged 55) Calcutta, West Bengal, India |
| Occupation | Poet, writer, and professor |
| Language | Bengali |
| Nationality | British Indian (1899–1947) Indian (1947–1954) |
| Alma mater | Brajamohan College University of Calcutta |
| Genre | Poetry, novels, short stories, criticism |
| Literary movement | Bengali Modernism |
| Notable works | Banalata Sen,Rupasi Bangla,Akashlina,Banalata Sen,Campe,Bodh |
| Notable awards | Nikhil Banga Rabindra Sahitya Sammelan Award (1952) Sahitya Akademi Award (1955) |
| Spouse | Labanyaprabha Das (née Gupta) |
| Children | 2 |
| Relatives | Kusumkumari Das (mother) |
| Signature | |
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Jibanananda Das[a] (17 February 1899 – 22 October 1954)[1] was an Indian poet, writer, novelist and essayist who wrote in theBengali language. Often referred to as theRupashi Banglar Kabi (lit. ''Poet of Beautiful Bengal''),[2][3] he is regarded as one of the most prominent Bengali poets afterRabindranath Tagore andKazi Nazrul Islam, although he received limited recognition during his lifetime.[4][5][6][7]
Born inBarisal to aBengali Hindu family, Das studied English literature atPresidency College, Kolkata, and earned a master's degree fromCalcutta University.[3] He experienced persistent difficulty securing stable employment and faced financial hardship throughout his life. He taught at several colleges but never granted tenure. Following the partition of India, he permanently settled in Kolkata. Das died on 22 October 1954, eight days after being struck by atram.[8] Witnesses had later reported that the tram had sounded its whistle, but Das did not stop and was hit. Some accounts have speculated that the incident may have been a suicide.[9]
Das was relatively unrecognised during his lifetime. Although he wrote profusely, he published little of his work, partly due to his introverted nature. Much of his writing remained unpublished,[3] and only seven volumes of his poetry appeared during his lifetime.[9] After his death, it was discovered that, in addition to poetry, Das had written 21 novels and 108 short stories. His notable works includeRuposhi Bangla,Banalata Sen,Mahaprithibi, andShreshtha Kavita.[3] His early poetry reflects the influence of Kazi Nazrul Islam,[3] but by the latter half of the 20th century, his own work had become a major influence on the development of modern Bengali verse.[10]
Das received the Rabindra-Memorial Award forBanalata Sen in 1953 at the All Bengal Rabindra Literature Convention.[3] His collectionShrestha Kavita won theSahitya Academy Award in 1955.[3] A film inspired by his short story Jamrultola, titled 'Sunder Jibon' and directed by Sandeep Chattopadhyay (Chatterjee), was produced bySatyajit Ray Film and Television Institute,[11][12] The film won theNational Film Award for Best Short Fiction Film at the50th National Film Awards, withShantanu Bose in the lead role.
Das was born in 1899 inBarisal, a district town in theBritish Raj, into a BengaliBaidya family. His ancestors originated from theBikrampur region (nowMushiganj) of theDhaka Division, from the now-extinct village of Gaupara in the kumarvog area of theLouhajang Upazila on the banks of the riverPadma.[13] Das' grandfather Sarbānanda Dāśagupta was the first to settle permanently in Barisal. He was an early exponent of the reformistBrahmo Samaj movement in Barisal and was highly regarded in town for his philanthropy. He erased the-gupta suffix from the family name, regarding it as a symbol ofVedicBrahmin excess, thus rendering the surname toDas.[14] Jibanananda's father Satyānanda Dāś (1863–1942) was a schoolmaster, essayist, magazine publisher, andfounder-editor ofBrôhmobadi, a journal of the Brahmo Samaj dedicated to the exploration of social issues.[15]
Jibanananda's motherKusumakumārī Dāś (1875–1948) was a poet who wrote a famous poem calledAdôrsho Chhēlē ("The Ideal Boy") whose refrain is well known to Bengalis to this day:Āmādēr dēshey hobey shei chhēlē kobey / Kothae nā boṛo hoye kajey boro hobey. (The child who achieves not in words but in deeds, when will this land know such a one?)[citation needed]
Jibanananda was the eldest son of his parents, and was called by the nickname Milu. A younger brother Aśōkānanda Dāś was born in 1901 and a sister called Sucharita in 1915. Jibananda fell violently ill in his childhood, and his parents feared for his life. Fervently desiring to restore his health, Kusumkumari took her ailing child on pilgrimage toLucknow,Agra andGiridih. They were accompanied on these journeys by their uncle Chandranāth.
In January 1908, Jibanananda, by now eight years old, was admitted to the first grade inBrojomohon School. The delay was due to his father's opposition to admitting children into school at too early an age. Jibanananda's childhood education was therefore limited to his mother's tutelage.
His school life passed by relatively uneventfully. In 1915 he successfully completed hismatriculation examination from Brajamohan College, obtaining a first division in the process. He repeated the feat two years later when he passed the intermediate exams fromBrajamohan College. Evidently an accomplished student, he left his home at rural Barisal to joinUniversity of Calcutta.
Jibanananda enrolled inPresidency College, Kolkata. He studiedEnglish literature and graduated with a BA (Honours) Degree in 1919. That same year, his first poem appeared in print in theBoishakh issue ofBrahmobadi journal. Fittingly, the poem was calledBorsho-abahon (Arrival of the New Year). This poem was published anonymously, with only the honorific Sri in the byline. However, the annual index in the year-end issue of the magazine revealed his full name: "Sri Jibanananda Das Gupta, BA".
In 1921, he completed the MA degree in English from University of Calcutta, obtaining a second class. He was also studying law. At this time, he lived in the Hardinge student quarters next to the university. Just before his exams, he fell ill withbacillary dysentery, which affected his preparation for the examination.
The following year, he started his teaching career. He joined the English department ofCity College, Calcutta as a tutor. By this time, he had left Hardinge and was boarding at Harrison Road. He gave up his law studies. It is thought that he also lived in a house in Bechu Chatterjee Street for some time with his brother Ashokanananda, who had come there from Barisal for his MSc studies.
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His literary career began to improve. WhenDeshbondhu Chittaranjan Das died in June 1925, Jibanananda wrote a poem called 'Deshbandhu' Prayan'e' ("On the Death of the Friend of the nation") which was published inBangabani magazine. This poem would later take its place in the collection calledJhara Palok (1927). On reading it, poetKalidas Roy said that he had thought the poem was the work of a mature, accomplished poet hiding behind a pseudonym.[citation needed] Jibanananda's earliest printedprose work was also published in 1925. This was an obituary entitled "Kalimohan Das'er Sraddha-bashorey," which appeared in serialised form inBrahmobadi magazine. His poetry began to be widely published in various literary journals andlittle magazines in Calcutta, Dhaka and elsewhere. These includedKallol, perhaps the most famous literary magazine of the era,Kalikalam (Pen and Ink),Progoti (Progress) (co-edited byBuddhadeb Bose) and others. At this time, he occasionally used the surname Dasgupta as opposed to Das.
In 1927, he publishedJhara Palok (Fallen Feathers), his first collection of poems. A few months later, Jibanananda was fired from his job at the City College. The college had been struck by student unrest surrounding a religious festival, and enrolment seriously suffered as a consequence. Still in his late 20s, Jibanananda was the youngest member of the faculty and therefore regarded as the most dispensable. In the literary circle of Calcutta, he also came under serial attack. One of the most serious literary critics of that time,Sajanikanta Das, began to write aggressive critiques of his poetry in the review pages ofShanibarer Chithi (the Saturday Letter) magazine.
With nothing to keep him inCalcutta, Jibanananda left for the small town ofBagerhat in the far south, there to resume his teaching career atBagerhat P. C. College. But after about three months he returned to the big city, now in dire financial straits. To make ends meet, he gave private tuition to students while applying for full-time positions in academia. In December 1929, he moved to Delhi to take up a teaching post atRamjas College; again this lasted no more than a few months. Back in Barisal, his family had been making arrangements for his marriage. Once Jibanananda went to Barisal, he failed to go back to Delhi – and, consequently, lost the job.
In May 1930, he married Labanyaprabha Sen, a girl whose ancestors came fromBagerhat. His marriage was solemnized at the Brahmo Samaj Mandir which was attended by leading literary lights of the day such asAjit Kumar Dutta andBuddhadeb Bose. A daughter called Manjusree was born to the couple in February of the following year.
Around this time, he wrote one of his most controversial poems. "Camp'e" (At the Camp) was printed inSudhindranath Dutta'sParichay magazine and immediately caused a firestorm in the literary circle of Calcutta. The poem's ostensible subject is a deer hunt on a moonlit night. Many accused Jibanananda of promoting indecency andincest through this poem.[citation needed] More and more, he turned now, in secrecy, to fiction. He wrote a number of short novels and short stories during this period of unemployment, strife and frustration.
In 1934 he wrote the series of sonnets that would form the basis of the collection calledRupasi Bangla. These poems were not discovered during his lifetime, and were only published in 1957, three years after his death.
In 1935, Jibanananda, by now familiar with professional disappointment and poverty, returned to hisalma mater Brajamohan College, which was then affiliated with the University of Calcutta. He joined as a lecturer in the English department. In Calcutta,Buddhadeb Bose,Premendra Mitra andSamar Sen were starting a brand new poetry magazine calledKobita. Jibanananda's work featured in the very first issue of the magazine, a poem calledMrittu'r Aagey (Before Death). Upon reading the magazine,Tagore wrote a lengthy letter to Bose and especially commended the Das poem: "Jibanananda Das' vivid, colourful poem has given me great pleasure." It was in the second issue ofKobita (Poush 1342 issue, Dec 1934/Jan 1935) that Jibanananda published his now-legendary "Banalata Sen". Today, this 18-line poem is among the most famous poems in the language.
The following year, his second volume of poetryDhusar Pandulipi was published. Jibanananda was by now well settled in Barisal. A son Samarananda was born in November 1936. His impact in the world ofBengali literature continued to increase. In 1938, Tagore compiled a poetry anthology entitledBangla Kabya Parichay (Introduction to Bengali Poetry) and included an abridged version ofMrityu'r Aagey, the same poem that had moved him three years ago. Another important anthology came out in 1939, edited by Abu Sayeed Ayub and Hirendranath Mukhopadhyay; Jibanananda was represented with four poems:Pakhira (The Birds),Shakun (The Vulture),Banalata Sen, andNagna Nirjan Haat (Naked Lonely Hand).
In 1942, the same year that his father died, his third volume of poetryBanalata Sen was published under the aegis of Kobita Bhavan and Buddhadeb Bose. A ground-breaking modernist poet in his own right, Bose was a steadfast champion of Jibanananda's poetry, providing him with numerous platforms for publication. 1944 saw the publication ofMaha Prithibi, Jibanananda's 4th collection of poems. TheSecond World War had a profound impact on Jibanananda's poetic vision. The following year, Jibanananda provided his own translations of several of his poems for an English anthology to be published under the titleModern Bengali Poems. Oddly enough, the editor Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya considered these translations to be sub-standard, and instead commissionedMartin Kirkman to translate four of Jibanananda's poems for the book.
The aftermath of the war saw heightened demands forIndian independence. Muslim politicians led byJinnah wanted an independent homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent. Bengal was uniquely vulnerable to partition: its western half was majority-Hindu, its eastern half majority-Muslim. Yet adherents of both religions spoke the same language, came from the same ethnic stock, and lived in close proximity to each other in town and village. Jibanananda had emphasized the need for communal harmony at an early stage. In his very first bookJhora Palok, he had included a poem calledHindu Musalman.However, events in real life belied his beliefs. In his poem 1946-47 he deplored the loss of life in communal riots. In the summer of 1946, he travelled to Calcutta from Barisal on three months' paid leave. He stayed at his brother Ashokananda's place through the bloody riots that swept the city. Violence broke out in Noakhali and Tippera districts later in the autumn. Just before partition in August 1947, Jibanananda quit his job at Brajamohan College and said goodbye to his beloved Barisal. He and his family were among the 10 million refugees who took part in the largest cross-border migration in history. For a while he worked for a magazine calledSwaraj as its Sunday magazine editor. However, he was fired from the job after a few months.
In 1948, he completed two of his novels,Mallyaban andShutirtho, neither of which were discovered during his life.Shaat'ti Tarar Timir (Darkness of Seven Stars), his 5th anthology of poems, was published in December 1948. The same month, his mother Kusumkumari Das died in Calcutta.
By now, he was well established in the Calcutta literary world. He was appointed to the editorial board of yet another new literary magazineDondo (Conflict). However, in a reprise of his early career, he was sacked from his job atKharagpur College in February 1951. In 1952, Signet Press published an expanded edition ofBanalata Sen. The book received widespread acclaim and won the Book of the Year award from the All-Bengal Tagore Literary Conference. Later that year, the poet found another job atBarisha College (now known asVivekananda College, Thakurpukur). This job too he lost within a few months. He applied afresh to Diamond Harbour Fakirchand College, but eventually declined it, owing to travel difficulties. Instead he was obliged to take up a post at Howrah Girl's College (now known asBijoy Krishna Girls' College), a constituent affiliated undergraduate college of the University of Calcutta. As the head of the English department, he was entitled to a 50-taka monthly bonus on top of his salary.
By the last year of his life, Jibanananda was acclaimed as one of the best poets of the post-Tagore era. He was constantly in demand at literary conferences, poetry readings, radio recitals etc. In May 1954, he was published a volume titled 'Best Poems' (Sreshttho Kobita). HisBest Poems won the IndianSahitya Akademi Award in 1955.
Young Jibanananda fell in love with Shovona, daughter of his uncle Atulananda Das, who lived in the neighbourhood. He dedicated his first anthology of poems to Shovona without mentioning her name explicitly. He did not try to marry her since marriage between cousin was not socially acceptable.[citation needed] She has been referred to as Y in his literary notes.
Jibananda marriedLabanyaprabha Das (née Gupta) in 1930. Labanyaprabha was the daughter of Rohini Kumar Gupta and Sarojubala Gupta. Her paternal uncle was Amritalal Gupta, a renowned Acharya of the Brahmo Samaj in Dhaka. He was the author of "Cheleder Katha" and "Punyabati Nari".[citation needed]
Jibanananda was in a road accident on 14 October 1954. He was hit by a tram while crossing a road near Calcutta'sDeshapriya Park, while on his evening walk. Seriously injured, he was taken toShambhunath Pundit Hospital, where he died eight days later on 22 October 1954, aged 55. He left behind his wife, Labanyaprabha Das, a son and a daughter.
His body was cremated the following day at Keoratola crematorium.[16] It has been alleged in some biographical accounts that his accident was actually an attempt at suicide.[17]
He was widely mourned in literary circles, with obituaries in almost all the main newspapers appreciating his poetry. Poet Sanjay Bhattacharya wrote the news of the death and sent it to different newspapers. On 1 November 1954,The Times of India wrote that "The premature death after an accident of Mr. Jibanananda Das removes from the field of Bengali literature a poet, who, though never in the limelight of publicity and prosperity, made a significant contribution to modern Bengali poetry by his prose-poems and free-verse ... A poet of nature with a serious awareness of the life around him, Jibanananda Das was known not so much for the social content of his poetry as for his bold imagination and the concreteness of his image."[citation needed]
Jibanananda Das started writing and publishing in his early 20s. During his lifetime he published only 269 poems in different journals and magazines, of which 162 were collected in seven anthologies, fromJhara Palak toBela Obela Kalbela.[18] Many of his poems have been published posthumously at the initiative of his brother Asokananda Das, sister Sucharita Das and nephew Amitananda Das, and the efforts of Dr. Bhumendra Guha, who over the decades copied them from scattered manuscripts. By 2008, the total count of Jibananda's known poems stood at almost 800. In addition, numerous novels and short stories were discovered and published about the same time.[19]
Jibanananda scholarClinton B. Seely has termed Jibanananda Das as "Bengal's most cherished poet sinceRabindranath Tagore".[20] He was known as asurrealist poet for his spontaneous, frenzied overflow of subconscious mind in poetry and especially in diction.[21]
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TheKolkata Poetry Confluence, in collaboration withBhasha Samsad, has instituted theJibanananda Das Award for poetry translation.[22] Jibanananda Das awards for translation were given away in ten different languages.[23]
A literary award namedJibanananda Puroshkar, also known as theJibanananda Prize, has been instituted inBangladesh.[24] It confers annual awards to the best works of poetry and prose by Bangladeshi authors.[25]
বাংলা সাহিত্যে রবীন্দ্রনাথ ও নজরুল ইসলামের পর শ্রেষ্ঠ কবি জীবনানন্দ দাশ। নতুন প্রজন্ম জীবনানন্দ দাশকে ভুলতে বসেছে। জীবনানন্দের প্রকৃতি প্রেম ও দর্শন নতুন প্রজন্মের মধ্যে ছড়িয়ে দিতে হবে। ... বলেন রবীন্দ্র ভারতী বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের সাবেক উপাচার্য পবিত্র সরকার। Jibanananda Das is the greatest poet after Rabindranath and Nazrul Islam. The young generation is forgetful of Jibanananda. We should promulgate his love and view of nature among the new generations. ... said Pabitra Sarkar, the ex-VC of Rabindra Bharati University.
আমৃত্যু নির্জন, অথচ মৃত্যুপরবর্তী কিছুকালের মধ্যে সমকালীন বাংলা কবিতার অন্যতম জনপ্রিয় কবিতে পরিণত হন জীবনানন্দ দাশ। Despite being desolate till death, Jibanananda Das became one of the popular poets of contemporary Bengali poems immediately after his death.
For the younger generation of Bengali poets today, he [Das] has practically come to take the place ofTagore. His influence on them is all-pervading.
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