�Ruposhi Bangla�, the suggestive term, is dignified and specified by Jibanananda Das in his poetry of the same title. Das rarely limits his exposition to glorify the beautiful and characteristic sights of eternal Bangla.
Rather, he delineates shifted brooding over the rise of urbanities and growth of populace, leading the known flora and faunato perish.
Thus, Jibanananda Das creates an ambivalent atmosphere of hope and dismay regarding the sustenance of nature and the defeat of it.
William Wordsworth, the avant-garde wordsmith of nature, entangles rusticity with floral settings, which Jibanananda Das could enable to dissect for his writing floral history throughout his "Ruposhi Bangla" (Beautiful Bangla).
Das turns out to be more committed to the exposition of the unparalleled beauty possessed by Bangla, the breath and fodder for existence.
To Das, flora and fauna turn into 'Ardho-Nariswar', a human body with two opposite gendering marks.
Both of them are complete with the simultaneous presence of each. Here, the veranda flower (castor oil flower) prevails, which excites the hornet to sing.
Besides the scene,the creek snakes through with its scintillating melody, and the seagull participates in the symphony.
Thereupon, the hornet and the seagull in 'Je Salikh More Jai' (The Salikh bird, which is dead) turn out to be the active receptors of the floral bliss, which is gifted through flowers and pearly droplets of water.
William Butler Yeats may have figured out the beam flickering by the wilful closeness of static natural entity, the lake, Coole, and dynamic or ever-revolving entities, the swans. Hence, the swans, unwearied, never retard at the cold companionable streams.
Wilderness and urbanity are enduring combatants. One takes over toppling down the other.To Das, nature has enduring effects. Urbanities collapse, as 'Aserio mixes with the ground- Babylon burns down to ashes'.
But Das has firm conviction as to his Bangla, a land of greenery drenched by wintry fog, which the sparrows witness at its dawn-time chirping lyricism that beautiful Bangla will hold up along with its ever clamorous muddy roads covered with half-torn leaves from the Aswatha and bamboo trees, its dewy chalta flowers in the winter morning, and its nocturnal owl, which hoots continually for their pair. Here, the conviction of Jibanananda Das reverses the general conception of urbanization.
Urbanization is hoisted on the graveyard of wilderness. And deplorably, Rabindranath Tagore reclaimed the wilderness back while he wanted this lifeless urbanities retreat.
This reclamation was impressionistically provable for Rabindranath, whereas Das relied on his intuition to predict the future path of civilization.
That's why, Das does not falter to inform in the 'Tomar Jekhane Sadh (Wherever you like to go) that the world will be crowded with the surges of people; localities will rise up; however, the evergreen scene of shedding leaves from the jackfruit trees, the loitering of Salikh on the dew-drenched grass, the freestyle synchronized swimming ofthe ducks around bindweed will never disappear.
Thus, the sites of eternal Bangla, which Das depicts in the 'Ruposhi Bangla' hold on uncompromisingly victorious.
Jibanananda Das and Rabindranath Tagore had identical impressions as to the glorification of the nature of Bangla, as the attrition to Bangla as 'Ruposhi Bangla' (Beautiful Bangla) and 'Sonar Bangla (Golden Bangla) are evidential. Yet, both of them had distinct outlooks towardthe natural settings of Bangla.
Tagore was impressed by the golden outfit through the rays of the glaring sun, the blooming buds of mango in the Falgun, and the ripened paddy in the Aghrayan.
On the flip side, Das is impressed by the silvery décor through the seven twinkling stars and half-moon, the whitening mist and fog, the autumnal sky, white-winged ducks, white-throated kites, the silver-rusted water of the Rupsha.
However, Tagore had expressed hesitancy on the supremacy of existence of nature in any case. Hence, EbarFeraw More (Let me come back) calls for the reclamation of wilderness in place of stony civilization.
Reversely, Das believes in the sustenance of the white-throated kites, Salikh, and the cyclic order of the six seasons with their distinct characteristics. Consequently, his rebirth is, hopefully, revealed through these entities of Bangla if he fails to retain his human shape.
Ruposhi Bangla has multi-layered impressiveness, and Jibanananda Das has embarked upon histories, myths, and cultural displays on the background of encompassing nature.
The history of the Indian Sub-continent, which Das weaves through the shell of nature, reiterates the royal dynasties and their out-of-context presence in the "Ruposhi Bangla". It can never be interpreted being the poet's debt to history.
Rather, the vastness of nature against the backdrop of urbanity reveals. The recollection of Ozymandias by P B Shelly galvanizes the stanch of Das.
The statue of the pompous king, Ozymandias, falls apart. These shattered visages, the lifeless things, usher in the mockery of human existence against the boundless, bare, lone, and level sands.
The squeaking sound of carriage for Bollal Sen is unheard and will never rejuvenate, though the green grass has recharged its tanned body with new grass.
The crimson banyan fruit peeps through the shades of the leafy dome, though the prince departs, who used to take refuge on hunting under these crimson domes owing to love for the blissful breeze.
Thus, history has strengthened the stance of the pastoral arrangement of Ruposhi Bangla. Green grass encompasses Ruposhi Bangla.
The sprouting of it on the deserted, destroyed palaces, and on the collapsed domes of the prayer houses gets along to have energized Das with his positioning of nature over transient human proud existence.
However, the diehard optimism about the sustenance of nature isshaken, and Das hangs around the vigilance of beauty all through the ages due to the brunt of a 'thriving crowd'.
It must not be misjudged that the thought of death transforms the optimistic poet into a pessimistic sojourner.
His theological indulgence and mystic frenzy led him to believe the second coming, imminent or late after his demise.
But, his belief is nimble in the case of the visualization of the sight, of a flock of tired ravens resting on the branches of mango or berries.
The carefree kites, Salikh used to bathe in the soothing river, which now frightens them due to its coal-laden deep black water for the burning of wet woods beside it. Only dark blue smoke engulfs the surroundings.
The golden ray disappears, and the bamboo bush is clad grey when the owl begins to cry at the sight of the curved emaciated moon.
Thus, nature beckons a gloomy mood by means of which a vacuum cavity is being dug in the depth of the heart for the loss of what once was in abundance around the poet.
However, Das ameliorates his stance about the ever-prevalent beauty of Bangla by being doubtful of the winning flight of all-encompassing nature.
Rather, he feels a repressed sting in the heart for the probable disappearance of flora and fauna, which lifted Bangla to the height of 'Ruposhi' and 'Sonali'.
Researcher & Editorial Member, International Journal of Recent Innovation in Academic Research
