“Tumi āmār ontostholer khawbor jāno”: a Song of Self-Analysing Bhakti by Rajanikanta Sen

Translated from the original Bangla by Sreejit Datta

[Translator’s note: Rajanikanta Sen (1865 – 1910) was one of the five finest poet-songwriters that Bengal has ever produced (the others being Rabindranath Tagore, Dwijendra Lal Roy, Atul Prasad Sen, and Kazi Nazrul Islam) during the golden age of Her cultural rejuvenation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Admired for his pithy compositions, Sen was born in the Bhangabari village of the Pabna district in Eastern Bengal. He was a lawyer by training, had earned much acclaim in that profession, and yet early in his career it was discovered by his contemporaries that his true calling lay in that of the poet’s, where his pratibhā blossomed like a thousand-petalled lotus. Sen was proficient in Sanskrit and had composed quite a few works of poetry in that language too. The stunning repertoire of his lyrics and compositions in Bangla, created within a rather short span of an intensely creative life, express multifarious moods and tones, ranging from the sombre to the rapturous and even the humorous; and they often exude consummate bhakti to the Divine as well as an intense love of his country in sublime Bangla verse. In the kirtan-styled song “Tumi āmār ontostholer khawbor jāno”, which is being translated here into English verse, Sen’s genius brings out in perfected metrical language a most severely sincere instance of self-analysis by a bhakta who asks some searching questions and makes a few frank confessions, all articulated in an extremely candid yet delightful idiom. The song is set in Raga Vibhāsa (Bangla pronunciation: Bibhāś), which bears a signature tune of Bengal’s very own Vaishnava kirtan and Baul music. To listen to the original song, click here.]

Tumi āmār ontostholer khawbor jāno

A Song by Rajanikanta Sen

(Translated from the original Bangla by Sreejit Datta)

To think that You know my innermost thoughts –

Lord, I die of shame!

I beguile others, while indulging myself

In thinking and doing all sorts of things!

If ever I should speak of those things,

People would hate me.

They won’t let me sit with them,

And they’d forsake me.

So, I wash my hands off these sins,

To put on a saint’s garb promptly –

And then they say, “here’s a good man,

He ever chants the name of Hari!”

As I stow my burden of sins away,

Far into the dark corners of my mind,

I discover with a great shock that

Your Eyes are awake right by the side!

Then, trembling with fear and shame

I fall at Thy Feet, and plead:

“Red-handed I have been caught,

Now, do as You see fit, O Hari!”

To think that You know my innermost thoughts –

I die of shame, O Hari!