Translation : Mohua (The Mohua Pala: An Old Folk Drama) : A Balladic Drama : Mymensingh Ballads : Original by Dvija Kanai

Translated from Bengali into English Verse by Mohit Ul Alam

Mohua is a 755-line-long balladic drama of unfulfilled love, originally meant to be sung. It is arguably one of the best songs that belongs to a tradition of oral culture that flourished in the northeastern region of Bengal in the period from the 10th or 11th century until the middle of the nineteenth century before the advent of the Bengali Renaissance.1 The vast marshy lands of northeastern Bengal constituted the greater Mymensingh paragana.2 Its earlier name was Moimonsingh as recorded by the British geographer and surveyor, James Rennel in 1779.3 In Ain-e-Akbari, a record book of the administrative system of Emperor Akbar, published in 1590, the area is called Mihmanshahi or Monminisinghha.4 Another lore claims that it was named after Mansingha, the commander-in-chief of the Akbar army, who made a successful conquest of this area.5 There is a sloka that describes the environment of Mymensingh, which in my poor translation, will appear like this: “Haor6, jungle, and buffalos’ horns / These three constitute Mymensingh’s bournes.” Lying to the south of the Garo Hills and Assam, the greater Mymensingh enjoys the vast haor and marshy lands of Netrokona and Kishoregunj, and the forests of Modhupur and Bhawal, the flat lands of Mymensingh and Jamalpur, and the hills of Sherpur-Mymensingh belt, and the wide bils (wide spreading croplands) of Tangail. The area consisting of the haors—a group of large and small waterbodies–falls in Netrokona and Kishoregunj, which is the fertile ground for the growth of folk ballads and songs, of which Mohua perhaps is the brightest gem.  The life of the local people in this area, also known as the bhati anchal, or marshy lands, is marked by their livelihood mainly depending on the crops during the dry season, and catching fish during the rainy season, in which time the boat becomes the only means of transport. The flood water fills up the haor to the brim and most of the trees, like hijol and tamal, remain half-merged with only their bushy tops visible above water. The simple life of the peasants of this area had no dearth of fun and pleasures, and at the day’s end, when the farmers returned from the fields, or the boatmen anchored their boats by a village, men, women, and children would gather in the yard of a rich man’s house or under a banyan tree to listen to the folk singers performing a pala or ballad. Sometimes makeshift stages would be made and the shows lit by homemade candles and kerosene lamps. The songs and poems, ballads, and dramas rendered orally were then transmitted to the succeeding generations and in this way, they went through changes, and modifications, and may be distortions too, but they formed a strong solid oral tradition that survives even today, the best modern exponents of which are the likes of Ukil Munshi and Shah Abdul Karim. The stories of these ballads were mainly non-communal and sang about the essential spirit of the life force, and, of course, love being one of the foremost themes of this school of ballads. People of this area are majority Muslims, but Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians (the converted from the tribal communities like the Garos and Hajongs) form a strong humanitarian, non-racial, and non-communal basis that was congenial for a liberal oral culture to grow. Their language is pure Bengali evolving from Prakrit, and Sree Dinesh Chandra Sen is sanguine in that the language of this area is absolutely free from the influence of the Sanskrit language.7

He (Dinesh Chandra Sen), has the credit of being the first scholar who made the effort to collect all these scattered ballads and print them in book form in four volumes with the title Eastern Bengal Ballads (with the added word Mymensingh for the first volume) published by the University of Calcutta from 1923 to 1932.  While Dinesh Chandra Sen has the full credit for compiling the ballads, the groundwork for actually collecting them from the singers’ mouths, writing them down, and collating them was done by a young man of thirty, named Chandra Kumar De, an illiterate person with excellent literary gift, who was severely sick from time to time during this job. Still, he did not give up on his enterprise. It is because of his arduous hard work coupled with Dinesh Chandra’s fine scholarship that the oral ballads finally came to a printed version. How hard it was for him to collect the full songs can be understood from this description from his letter sent to Dinesh Chandra on 30 May 1921:

“It is a great inconvenience that one individual singer is scarcely found in this district who knows a whole poem. It is to be recovered from various persons living [in] widely distant places, so that a long journey is required to get hold of a whole poem. Disappointments are sometimes faced in the course of such searches.”8

This letter was accompanied by the complete manuscript of Mohua in which Dinesh Chandra Sen detected some faults in the chronological arrangement, which he duly re-serialized by following the thread of the story.  This corrected version of Mohua is used by me for my translation.  

Mohua, originally, a daughter of an old Brahmin, living in the village of Kanchanpur, beside the river Dhonu, was stolen by Humra, a gypsy leader, when she was only six months old. She grew up in her foster father’s house as an exceptionally beautiful girl, and she became one of the major performers in her father’s band displaying impossible circus feats and other acrobatic skills. And then she reached her sixteenth year, glittering like the gem on a snake’s hood, or a lonely marigold in the forest. Humra’s band was a nomadic group that travelled from region to region. On one of their performance tours, the troupe came to a village called Bamankanda, where lived the high-caste Brahmin family of Nader Chand, the hero of this drama. When Mohua’s band was invited to play at Nader Chand’s house, love at first sight took place, and they fell in love with each other.  Nader Chand gave the band a house and some land to live in but his love for her grew more intense by the day. Despite her great liking for Nader Chand, Mohua tried to convince him that because of the caste and social differences their match would not be possible to materialize and that he better stop seeing her. Humra, the gypsy leader and the foster father of Mohua spotted this unequal love, and perceiving the danger, determined not to allow the affair to grow.  So, one night the whole band of the gypsies just deserted the village.  But Nader Chand was not to be resisted. Abandoning his parents, his house, and his great riches, he went on an indefinite journey in quest of the gypsy girl, Mohua. Months went by, years went by, and finally, Nader Chand got the trace of the band living in a certain village. The new guest (Nader Chand) was entertained in the house where Mohua was living, and Humra at first welcomed the guest and gave him accommodation and food, but he had a villainous plot up his sleeve. One night he woke up Mohua and gave her a poisonous knife to kill Nader Chand, who was sleeping peacefully on a leafy bed under a hijol9 tree. Despite her protest, Mohua agreed to do the job. But as she drew her knife to kill him, looking at his face she failed and her love for him got the better of her. On that very night, they escaped riding a horse from Humra’s stable and came to a hilly river that was difficult to cross. A merchant vessel took them on board, but the merchant had a crush on her and conspired with his boatmen, who threw Nader Chand into the gushing water of the river. Mohua also tried to end her life by jumping into the river, but the boatmen caught her. Then the merchant tried to persuade her that if she married him, she would live like a queen. Mohua knew better. She secretly carried the chameleon’s poison in a sack tied to her hair. She rubbed the poison in the paan she offered the merchant to eat, who fell unconscious by the effect of the poison. She also treated the boatmen with poisonous paans to eat. As they all fell unconscious, she cut the anchor of the vessel and made a hole into the wooden bottom of the vessel with an axe causing it to sink to the riverbed. Mohua swam across the river and thought of ending her life. But thought further that she should search more. Many days after she reached a dilapidated temple, where she discovered Nader Chand almost on the verge of death. A hermit appeared and helped her to recover Nader Chand by applying a rare kind of herbal medicine. But then the hermit also grew a crush on Mohua and proposed to her that she should be his mate and poison Nader Chand to death. Mohua again thought of a ploy and said to the hermit that first he cured Nader Chand fully and she would oblige him then. Nader Chand was terribly sick, but Mohua carried him on her shoulders to a far place beyond the reach of the hermit. They started living a romantic nomadic life in the forest surviving upon fruits and foods available in the forest. They started living in a makeshift shack. Amidst this pleasure, however, one day Mohua was startled to hear the tune of a flute. This meant that Humra and his gang had found them out. Humra met Mohua and again thrust a poisonous knife into her hand urging her to kill Nader Chand and marry his adopted son, Sujon. Mohua refused to marry Sujon, who to her was like a glow-worm compared to the bright sun that Nader Chand was. She then rued the fact that Humra had stolen her from the lap of her mother and that she did not know who her parents were. After saying this, she thrust the knife into her chest and fell to death. On Humra’s instruction, his men killed the sleeping Nader Chand. They were buried together in the same grave. Humra became repentant for his deed and deserted the place forever. Mohua’s palank-mate sang the last song, number 24, in which she lamented the death of Mohua and urged her to come back to life anew and start her conjugal life with Nader Chand, who was also dead.

This ballad, Mohua, summarized above, a great literary enterprise in Bengali oral tradition, was composed by Dvija Kanai, a folk poet, in Netrokona, Mymensingh, Bangladesh in the early seventeenth century. Dvija Kanai was a priest, who belonged to the Hindu scheduled caste or Nama Sudra, and Dinesh Chandra Sen speculates that the poet owned a troupe of actors who might have performed this drama on the stage. He also speculates that the Mohua-Nader Chand tragic episode may be based on the poet’s own life and that he also had fallen in love with a girl of a social status lower than his. 

My attempt at translating the ballad grew out of an act of serendipity. On 22 January this year (2024), I undertook a tour to Mymensingh with my wife accompanying me. I meant to revisit the university, Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam University, situated in Trishal, an upazila in Mymensingh district, because I was the Vice Chancellor of that university for one full tenure from 2013 to 2017. At our meeting, the present Vice-Chancellor Professor Dr. Soumitra Sekhor presented me with a gift of a very small 3 by 4 square inches red-covered book, entitled Maimansingha-Gitika (Mymensingh Ballads) collected by Sree Dinesh Chandra Sen, a centennial publication by Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam University, edited by Soumitra Sekhor himself.

I brought this small book home and started reading the first ballad, Mohua. There are two more ballads in this sleek volume: Molua, supposedly composed by the female poet Chandravati, and Dewana Madina by Mansur Boyati. I got so mesmerized by the simple beauty of the poem’s rhymes that I did repent that I had not read it earlier. It was so buoyant and simple and so full of charms that I remained speechless for a while. I did not guess, however, at that point that I would be sitting at my laptop to translate it into English. At first, I translated the ‘Praise of Song’ in plain prose. I did the second one too (the First Song) in plain prose. But I did not feel satisfied. I felt that I must retain the lively rhyme pattern of the original in the translation. Then I attempted to translate the whole poem keeping to the discipline of the text’s rhyming scheme: like ankhi (eye) and pakhi (bird) as end rhymes. This I did with great enthusiasm, as if I was carried by the poetic verve of the poem in the original and translated it as spontaneously as my strength as a rhymer would allow me. One point of difficulty must be recognized that the Bengali verse pattern in this poem is sublime, both matching in sound and tone, noting which Dinesh Chandra Sen has said that what Shakespeare’s Polonius in the play, Hamlet, said as a rule for speech modesty, that ‘brevity is the soul of wit’, this versification of Mohua is similar in brevity. The word choice is so precise and so enchantingly vibrant and to the point that the majority of the lines have not more than six to seven words. During my translation, I became aware of this economy, though I could not confine the length of the line to such few words. Perhaps, in the act of translation, this leverage has to be allowed. However, as I recited aloud my translation, I felt that my translated lines had also frequently produced inner rhymes in addition to the end rhymes. One more thing I assiduously followed. That is, I have rigorously kept my translation, without exception, to the exact line numbers of the songs as they are in the original. This helped me to keep the compact shape of the poem. When I completed the translation of all 24 songs plus the ‘Song of Praise’, I felt that I must enquire if this poem had been translated earlier in verse form. My academic discipline is English Literature and my knowledge of the folk and oral tradition of Eastern Bengal is next to nothing. Then I got hold of an online version of the pathbreaking book by Dinesh Chandra Sen, who compiled and edited, Eastern Bengal Ballads: Mymensingh, Vol 1. Part 1, published by the University of Calcutta in 1923. It was the first of the four volumes of his great work. 

I downloaded a copy of the volume and got it printed but was both surprised and glad to take a look at the text. I was surprised that Dinesh Chandra Sen despite his excellent command of the English Language did not deign to translate the poem into verse form but rather did it in poetic prose, and glad that because he had not done it in poetic form it had left room for us future translators to translate the great poem into the versified form.  I have not been able to find out whether any versified translation of the poem existed.  The First Volume compiled and edited by Dinesh Chandra Sen contains 22 ballads consisting of 17,297 lines with Mohua as the leading ballad10.

In the first volume, Dinesh Chandra Sen writes an Introduction for over 100 pages and a 6-page Preface to Mohua, and his General Introduction to Vol IV: Part 1, entitled Eastern Bengal Ballads, runs for 41 pages, and in these pages, he explains the historical background of why the Bengali of the Bhati Anchal could not have evolved from Sanskrit but rather was a descendent form of the Prakrit. Dinesh Chandra Sen remarks that historically the great Sen dynasty could never capture certain areas of Bengal, namely, Sylhet, Mymensingh, and Chittagong. Since the Sen kings were also great patrons of Sanskrit literature and language and stout supporters of Brahminism, or New Hinduism, these areas were not influenced or corrupted by the Sanskrit language. And the ballads in the area outside the jurisdiction of the Sen Dynasty had their own indigenous growth:

“The ballads are chiefly found in those districts of Bengal which the Sen Dynasty could not conquer, –in Sylhet, Chittagong and mainly Mymensingh.”11                       

The people of these areas used a Prakrit-Bengali as their language. While the Sanskrit language forced a degree of artificiality in the language and was more widely used by the court and urban people, the Prakrit-Bengali was the language of the people who clung to the soil for their living. This dependency on the vernacular accounts for the ballads being so enchanting to listen to. These were also the means of education imparted by the old to the new.12 And showing the difference between the pure original composition of the ballads and the Brahminic Renaissance literature, Sen writes:

“ . . . but when we read the Renaissance [Bengal Renaissance] poems side by side with the Mymensingh ballads and other poems of the indigenous school, which bear on them the hall-mark of Bengali society before the Brahminic revival, we cannot help calling the classical element somewhat exotic and artificial.”13          

To exemplify the vibrancy of the Prakrit-Bengali words as opposed to Sanskrit orthography, Dinesh Chandra Sen supplies a selected list of words collected from the ballads, and inserts it in Volume 4, with their parallel words in Sanskrit. He does it, I believe, to show the superiority of the Prakrit-Bengali words to their Sanskrit counterparts. The list is given in Bengali, but I give it in English, along with English-translated words for the convenience of non-Bengali-speaking readers.

Prakrit   Sanskrit and Distortion    English

Indu       Hindu     Hindu

asra       asroi     shelter

kaini       kahini    story

mukhchandike    mukhochndrika  preface

birdda                    briddha               old man

portibashi            protibeshi            neighbour

shukkur shukro   Friday

geram   gram      village

boidesh bidesh   foreign country

barama brammah             One of the chief

                              gods in Hinduism

murtek  muhurtek             moment

shauri    shashuri               mother-in-law

heja       shojaru  porcupine

pokela   paka      ripe

kuil         kokil       cuckoo

jigai        jiggasha kore      asking

chan      chand    moon

bebhar bebohar               manners

porbesh probesh enter

judi         jodi        if

koitor    kobutar pigeon

pankhi   pakhi     bird

kankhe  kokkhe  waist

ontrim kaal         ontim kaal           the last moments

joibon    joubon  youth

oite        hoite      from

sudor     sohodor               own brother

tirudi      truti       mistake

suter      sroter    with the current

                              of the river/sea

karali     kandari  the head boatman

sande    sandeho               doubt/suspicion

bisram   bisram   rest

tirbhubhon          tribhubhon          the world/

                              earth/universe

garash   grash     a handful of food

asormani             asomman            insult

pannam pranam paying respect by

                              touching the foot

bochor  botshor year

bhormon             bhromon             travel

bhomor bhromor              wasp

hapnaar               apnar     ‘yours’  in a

                              respect sense

okorshat              okoshmat            suddenly

dile         daal       lentils

agon      agrohayan           a Bengali month

                              corresponding to

                              mid-November to

                              mid-December

noikhotro            nakhkhatra          star

pu           purbo    east

dashey  deshey  in the country

rite         ratri       night

dhommo              dhormo religion

baddi     baddo    musical instrument

chokke  chokkhe               in the eye

saudh    sadhu    saint

oishtokhon          oshtokhon           all hours

ubash    upobash               fasting

singasoney          singhasoney        in the throne

doarey  dwarey  at the door

joarful   jabaful   chrysanthemum

moilan   molin     sad/depressed

borto     broto     devotion

ladi         lathi       stick

porachitto           praishchitto        penance

pid          pith        the back

porkhia porikhkha            examination

haap      shaap    snake

haori      shashuri               mother-in-law

bugor    buker     in the chest

bhao      bhav      attitude

chisha    shisha    lead

doi         dodhi     curd

kellesh   klesh      struggle/hardship

kirpa      kripa      mercy

atti         hati        elephant

chandma             chondrima           moon

tchiri      sree       beauty

sinan      snan       bath

birtha    britha    in vain

dhuma   dhum     festive

mida      mitha     sweet

pordim  prodip   light/candle

boshsha               borhsa   rain

iramoti  hiramoti               diamond necklace/

                              a female name

bhida     bhita      paternal land

birokho brikkho  big tree

chaoa    chaya    shade

bamun   brahmin               brahmin

porti      proti      every

poshchchat         poshchat             behind

urdesh   uddeshshyo         purpose

bhomra bhromor              hornet

choitmash           choitromash       the last Bengali

               month, mid-March

               to mid-April     

en           heno                                                           then

porbudh               probodh               made to understand

portoi                                                                                             prottoi                                            determination

borman brahmin               brahmin

shainz    sandhya               evening

khida     khuda    hunger

jormer   jonmer from the birth   

aishana Ashwin  the sixth Bengali

                              month, mid-September

                              to mid-October

chaddor               chador  bedsheet

majoney              mohajoney          the loan giver

                              on interest

roid        rode       sunlight

shayan  sraban   the fourth Bengali

                              month, mid-July

                              to mid-August

debta     debota  god

pukhur   pushkuroni          pond/tank

pushsher              purusher              of man

girey      grihey    home

bala       bela       a period of the day

pirthimi prithibi the earth

maadi    maadi     the soil

muit       mushthi                fist

kaadi     kaathi    stick

boimukh              bimukh  deny

ped        pet         stomach

moishor               moshari mosquito net 

tuan       tufaan   storm

portigga               protigga               promise

thada     bojro     thunder

siram     Sriram   god Rama

doimot  dimot    contradiction

uyor       upor       up

shoad    shad       taste

stiri        stree      wife

aaun      aagun    fire

girdhini  gridhini  vulture

korodh  krodh     anger/fury

hachchuria          snatria   swimming across

hendu    Hindu     Hindu

konno    korno    ear14

This is of course not an exhaustive list, but it tells both about the difference in spelling and pronunciation between Prakrit and Sanskrit and also the raw and pure spirit of the language of the ballad makers, who used Prakrit-Bengali words and not the Sanskritised words. In most cases, the change in Sanskrit came in joining letters, while they had separate syllables in the Prakrit pronunciation. For instance, birikkho (tree—three syllables) in Prakrit is brikkho  in Sanskrit (disyllabic), korodh (anger) in Prakrit is disyllabic is krodh (monosyllabic) in Sanskrit. The Prakrit pronunciation is true to the actual speech used by the indigenous people, that is the dialect, whereas Sanskrit spellings and pronunciations are polished, and chiselled but not true to how actually people in the rural society speak them. This remark by Sen emphasizes the point:

“Curiously though we have adopted now the Sanskrit orthography in all forms of written Bengali, the spoken dialect still adheres to Prakrit.”15 

So true is the above observation that the language of the ballads has retained the original flavour of the vernacular speech, which we also speak at home.  

Secondly, the spirit of the ballads was one of a non-communal type, and Sen emphatically says that if a survey was made it would be seen that the Moslem composers had contributed more than their Hindu counterparts. Of Sen’s initial collection of 54 ballads 15 were composed by Muslim versifiers. He, therefore, assures his Moslem brethren not to suffer from the misconception that the ballads were a great exponent of the Hindu religion.

“If our Moslem brethren still contend that the old Bengali literature is essentially Hindu in its character they will be greatly mistaken. The Bengali Moslems have as much ground to take pride in their mother-tongue as the Hindus themselves, and if a true estimate of merit is made by impartial critics, I am not sure whether the palm would be carried by16 Hindus or Mahomedans.”17

Along with the non-communal spirit of the ballads, what Dinesh Chandra Sen picks up, thirdly, is the abundance of freedom granted to women in the songs. Not only that the majority of the ballads were named after females like Mohua, Malua, Chandravati, Kamala, Rupavati, Malancha, Sakhina, Kajalrekha, Lila, etc., but all these heroines were of adult age when they could make up their minds to elect or select their life partners. Elect, because, in this culture, the ritual of swayambara18 was respected. In this respect, women choosing their life partners, we find a thematic similarity between many of Shakespeare’s plays, where, for instance, Jessica, Hermia, Desdemona, etc., choose their own husbands defying their fathers, while Portia in The Merchant of Venice even stages the ritual of swayambara. About these liberated heroines in the ballads, Sen writes:

“Here the girls select their own bride-grooms and they do not marry before attaining puberty. Mohua was sixteen years old when she fell in love with Nader Chand. Mohua, Bhelua and Kamala were sixteen when they felt the ‘pangs of five arrows’ and got themselves married. If the choice of the girls ran counter to that of their guardians they did not yield to the decision of their elders, but followed the bent of their own minds. . . Mohua, though so meek and lovely, shows her quite resolve and uncompromising preference when she says to her foster-father that Nader Chand is like the sun while Shujon whom she is commanded to marry is like a glow-worm.”19 

But this tradition soon vanished under the repressive social customs introduced by Renaissance Brahminism. Sen writes on the repressive conditions imposed on women by Renaissance Brahminism.

“The Brahmins enacted rules for Gauridan [sic]—or marriage of daughters eight years old and left no field to the bride or bridegroom for selection by mutual choice. They laid strict rules in regard to taking meals, for fast and vigil, which were no doubt important and essential for purely spiritual purposes, but they disregarded secular ideas in the most uncompromising tone and left no door open for romance in matters between the sexes.”20

However, this passage from Sen is more tale-telling about the difference between the balladic-free atmosphere and the constrained circumstances initiated by New Hinduism:

“[These heroines of the ballads] do not depend on divinity but on their own action. They are full of tacts and resourcefulness.  Mohua, when she felt a misgiving as to her chance of meeting Nader Chand, resolved to commit suicide; but she instantly recollected that all possible recources had not yet been tried. So she proceeded on to make a further search for her lover without yielding to despair. She said that she would not end her life until she had tried her very best. Any of the characters in our Renaissance-literature under similar circumstances would sit down to weep and pray, depending entirely upon Providential help. This resourcefulness and self-dependence mark out the characters as essentially distinct from the Renaissance men and women.”21  

Fourthly, Sen argues that with the arrival of Renaissance Brahminism, came a ban on sea voyaging. It was like a forbidden undertaking. But in the areas outside the Brahminic influence, viz., Sylhet, Mymensingh, and Chittagong, this jurisprudence had no impact whatsoever. In Mohua, for instance, Nader Chand himself is called a Sowdagar, that is, he is a merchant who does trading on the sea. There is a merchant villain in the poem whom Mohua punishes by sinking his vessel. And in the prominent ballad from Chittagong, Nasar Malum, malum means a sea captain.

In addition to what Dinesh Chandra Sen has forwarded as his ideas on the making of the ballads, I have only this much to add that I cannot but feel ecstatic when I read these ballads of the bygone days. Shakespeare has said through Duke Theseus in A Midsummer Night’s Dream that the poet’s “imagination bodies forth / The forms of things unknown” (5.1.14-15), and “the poet’s pen / Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing / A local habitation and a name” (5.1.15-17). This is exactly what is achieved by Dvija Kanai in Mohua.

Perhaps every literary action has a mysterious origin, and when I connect this event of translating a great folk ballad into modern English verse, two certain happenings from my past life peep out as aligning preparatory grounds for me to undertake this job of translation.

When I was a school-going child, my literary father used to hold a monthly literary adda in our house with his literary-minded friends. He called these sessions, ‘Mohua’. And at a much later time, in 1974, when major parts of northern Bangladesh were affected by a massive flood, Kishoregunj was one of the sub-districts badly inundated. I was at the time a second-year student at the English Department of Dhaka University, where a student organization, of which I was a member, decided to take part in the relief operations, and we three students went to Nikhli, at that time a police station, to donate relief goods and vaccinate people. We stayed there for a couple of weeks in August, and while busy with the relief operations, I was personally getting imbued with the peculiar accent villagers spoke. Their utterance had a lingering musical tenor, especially the verbs were pronounced with ‘gechuin,’ khaichuine, ‘shunchuine’ (gone, eaten, heard) or ‘jaibam’, ‘khaibam’ (gone, eaten), and their propensity for pronouncing the ‘o’ sound as ‘u’ sound. For instance, the Sanskrit-affected Bengali pronunciations of words like ‘bhor’ (dawn), ‘dhole’ (drum), ‘ghora’ (horse) are pronounced with an ‘o’ sound, but by the people of the Bhati Anchal these words are pronounced as ‘bhur’, ‘dhul’, ‘ghura’ etc., with a ‘u’ sound.  To my ear, this unfamiliar accent sounded so sweet and magical that I had not probably forgotten much of it, and, after 39 years, when I was functioning at Kazi Nazrul University in Trishal, Mymensingh as the Vice Chancellor, I got the opportunity back to revive my familiarity with the dialect. And when I engaged myself in translating Mohua, I was again charmed by the extraordinarily simple but sweet mellifluous language of the poem.

In conclusion, I would like to submit my humble attempt at the sweet disposal of the readers. My apologies for any inadvertent mistake or misconception, and would agree to modify the piece with proper suggestions.

Most humbly,

Mohit Ul Alam    

Chattogram

31 March 2024 

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Mymensingh Ballads

Mohua: A Balladic Story

(The Mohua Pala22: An Old Folk Drama)

Composed by Dvija Kanai in the early seventeenth century23

Translated from Bengali into English by Mohit Ul Alam

The Song of Praise24

I have worshipped the Eastern God,

The sun on all sides is the lord.

The Milky River and the sea in the South,

The merchant Chand Sowdagar25 lives at the mouth. 

Northward have I worshipped the ‍Mount Everest,

Is located the Ali’s Malam’s26 Stone on its breast.

On the west is Mecca, the holy site,

Moslems come here to perform a rite. 

My brethren Hindu and Moslem,

Salam27 at your feet with a great anthem. 

The earth’s four corners will I tie to worship them.

In the Sundar Bans28 lives Ghazi29, the live saint,

Sky, earth, moon, and sun will my poem paint.

My respect for the scriptures and the Holy Qur’an,

What song should I sing to execute my plan,

At my ustad’s30 feet, I lay my poem to scan. 

Song 1

Humra31, the Gypsy Leader

Northward is the Garo Hills32, six months to go,

Further north the Mountain Himalayas stand in a row.

Further north on the edge what one sees,

A vast area of water is the Seven Seas.  

No sun, and no moon, only darkness on a spree,

Tigers and bears only, no human beings to see.

There in the forest lived Humra, a gypsy leader,

It is his lore, Hindu and Moslem, that I have to offer. 

He led a gang of dacoits, who robbed people,

Mainka33 was his younger brother, not at all feeble.

Travelled the two brothers across many countries34,

But here is a particular tale, if you listen, please.

Hey brethren,

Listen about what they had done while travelling,

The river, Dhonu35, they came to at their journey’s ending.

A village called Kanchanpur was beside the river,

An old Brahmin lived there in his abode like a picture.

Had he a six-month-old daughter exquisitely beautiful,

Whom Humra stole while the dark night was plentiful.

Stealing her, Humra left that country making no delay,

Now give me your ear to learn this lass’s36 lay.

The six-month-old-daughter passed many years,

Like a bird in a cage was she growing in gears.

After one, two, and three years she reached sixteen,

Humra taught her all the games and tricks from the bin.

As the snake pearl glitters on its hood,

Such fascinating was the baidya’s37 daughter, it is understood.

Who is this baidya, from mouth to mouth roams the query,

Whose daughter lights up like gold in a dark room all cheery. 

When she strolls, her tresses glide down to her feet,

Her face glows like Kanak Champa38 when she you meet.

Her eyes, luminous and big, shine like stars,

Even beasts look at her glued defying all bars. 

Hey brethren, even saints have a jolt as they see her

Taking her along, Baidya travels the world wide and far.

Baidya Humra stole a child, now a baidya woman39,

“Mohua Sundari” was her name as he told his clan.

Song – 2

Garo Hills: The Forrest Area

(Enter Humra and Mainkia, the brothers with their gang)

Humra Baidya calls, ‘Mainkia, my brother,

Let us show our games abroad to usher.’

Mainkia Baidya says, ‘Brother, you listen carefully,

On Friday will we go abroad dutifully.’

On Friday, the morning arose, and arose the gang together,

They packed their belongings for the journey with no bother. 

Humra led the gang, followed by Mainkia.

How many followed behind, I have no idea.

Carried they bamboo and tents, ropes and cables,

Birds they took tota40, parrots, and tia41 as go the fables.

Took they also the golden-billed doel42 in a bird’s cage,

Took they horses, took they donkeys, what more to engage.

Took also they with them the bones of Rao Chandal43,

The hunting dogs ran alongside, porcupines and foxes to haul.

With such blissful minds did they journey abroad,

With them, they carried Mohua Sundari44, whom all did applaud.

With her the palank45 maid, embracing her by the neck.

Days followed into months with no time to beg.

Bamankanda, a village they came to at the journey’s final leg. 

Song – 3

At the Court of Nader Chand46

Amidst his court is sitting Thakur Naddyer Chand,

The full moon and the starry sky lit as a fresh brand.

The courtiers all squatting in rows back and forth,

Then entered the Lame47 offering Salam, nothing to loath.

‘Listen, my Thakur, this I want to tell you,

A band of baidyas are in the village, a matter to pursue.  

With them is an exquisitely beautiful damsel,

A beauty of her kind can I never cancel.’

Hearing this what the Thakur had done,

Went straight to his mother for her permission.

‘Listen, my birth-giver, what I am telling you,

The baidyas have come with a theatre new.

Your consent I want to secure, and nothing more,

I will hold the show, Mother dear if you are not sore.’  

‘How many hundred takas48 does the show need?’

‘The baidyas charge a hundred taka as their meed.’

‘Listen, my son, Naddyer Chand, hold the show,

Let the outhouse be the place for their show to glow.’

Song – 4

The Display of the Games

Humra Baidya calls to Mainkia, ‘O dear brother,

Take the bow, take the arrow, let’s take the offer.’

Uttering this when Humra Baidya struck his drum,

Naiddyapur people excitedly urged each other to come. 

One man calls another, and another calls another,

Go we to Thakur Bari49 to enjoy the baidyas’ theatre.

People crowded in from all directions to watch the show,

Amidst them sat Naddyer Thakur looking to and fro.

When the Baidya-lass vertically held the bamboo pole,

Stood up Naddyer suddenly as if electrified in his soul.

Climbed up the rope she, to dance impossibly on the pole,

Naddyer Thakur cried out, oh me, death might be her toll.

The bells rang, the anklets tinkled and the drum struck,

They all sang Naddyer Tahkur’s home have we come by luck.

We displayed circus, and exotic dances, pay us now handsomely,

In his mind, Naddyer Thakur, craved to know the girl solely.

He gifted them a shawl of thousand rupees50 and a huge cash,

And Humra Baidya begged for a home to settle down in a dash.

He gave them lentils, and also rice to cook and eat,

Consume your food in the new house and sleep neat.

Gave you the stone to smash foods, and to have more,

Go to Uluyakanda to build a house with a floor and door.  

The new house the Baidya built to great comfort,

And pleasantly blew a wind, but the daughter felt discomfort.

And the Baidya created a garden of eggplants all around,

And the daughter cried to pluck them in tears drowned.

‘Do not cry, my dear daughter, do not cry,

Selling those eggplants, I will a gold chain buy.’

About the new house, Baidya seeded paddy,

‘Without you, daughter, a knife would kill me unhappy.’

And then Baidya planted an orchard of arum,

‘Selling arum will give you bangles on your arm.’ 

And the Baidya grew bananas on the compound,

‘The bananas sold, a chain will deck your neck around.’  

All around the new house, Baidya erected a fence,

And adorned the fence with jasmine flowers dense.

He killed the ducks and the pigeons, hunted down the parrots,

Eggplants soaked in black cumin, ‘cook a dish that not rots’. 

Song – 5

Naddyer Thakur and Mohua meet at the River Ghat

One day Naddyer Thakur held a gathering on the road,

Three evenings a candle burnt in the house on a board.

Finishing her games, Baidya’s daughter was returning home,

Meeting her on the road, Naddyer Thakur, the handsome.

‘Hi, lass, listen to me well, come near me for a moment,

I want to tell you what is brewing in my mind in this instant.

As the moon rises in the evening, and sinks the sun,

At that time do you go to the river ghat alone for some fun.

Go there, lass, all by yourself in the evening by the river,

I’ll fill your jar to the brim to carry on your waist slimmer.’

So, carrying her jar on her waist, does Mohua go to the river,

And right there on that evening, Naddyer Chand waiting forever.

‘Fill the water, you beautiful lass, your mind is in water,

What I said yesterday, do you remember ever?’

‘Listen to me, you prince from a different land,

Whatever you said yesterday, my memory is sand.’

‘Ah, you, young lass, so forgetful is your mind,

Just by one night, you forgot my words, so unkind.’

‘You are a man from a different country, and so am I,

I die of shyness to talk when you are nearby.’

‘Oh my, watery nymph, you have stirred the waves of love,

Speak with a smiling face, as nobody is watching us, dove.

Who is your mother, lass, and whoever is your father,

Where did you have your abode, before coming hither?’

‘I have no father and mother, no own brother either,

Float like a plankton in the current of the river.

It was my fate to be roaming with the Baidya,

What anguish I burn from, you have no idea.

No caring mind do I find in this world,

To understand what pain into I am being hurled.

You, Thakur, are living with a beautiful wife,

A happy family you have nothing to complain about life.’

Thakur then said, ‘Lass, I’ve tied my soul to you,

It was a mistake you thought I have a wife to woo.’

‘Hard-hearted are your parents, hard-hearted are you,

A youthful life is squandered where nothing is true.

Your father and mother are a cruel pair, and so are you,

This youth in you is in full bloom, but not any wife to woo.’

‘Yes, hard-hearted are my parents, hard-hearted me too,

But will I marry, if I got a girl like you.’

‘O shameless Thakur, no iota of shame in you,

Tie a jar to your neck and die drowning through.’

‘Where would I get the jar, lass, where the rope,

You be the deep river, and let me drown without hope.’

Song – 6

The Palankmate and Mohua have a chat

‘Listen, sister Mohua, eat up my head,

Why in the evening to the river ghat are you led?

Spend the whole night crying with tears in thine eyes,

Tell me please what in your heart does not feel nice.

You keep eyeing the Thakur Bari with an eager look,

Naddyer Thakur is he whom in your song you brook.’

Hearing this Mohua slowly began to speak,

‘How can I extinguish the fire inside me or remain meek?

Must we leave this country, and go to a foreign strand,

I try to convince my mind but it does not understand.’

‘Listen to me, my sister, keep my words,

For seven days avoid the river ghat, stay put as pet birds.

Come Naddyer Thakur, I will explain to him,

That last night your beauty queen’s life became grim.’

Again, hearing this, says Mohua slowly in a voice,

‘If I don’t see him, I will first die having no choice.

The sun and the moon are the witnesses, and so are you,

Naddyer Thakur is my husband, my heart has taken to.

Wherever I go to, with Baidya, my dear mate,

Nowhere does exist a place for me to feel sedate.

I will go to another country with my soulmate,

Or poison I will take, or a rope to hang without late.’

Song – 7

Humra and Mainkia discuss

‘Listen, my brother Manik, listen to me,

Let us leave this country for a new place to see.

What use is a house, better live by begging alms,

My daughter is mad for Naddyer Thakur’s palms.’ 

Mainkia says, ‘Don’t speak like this brother,

Don’t leave this golden house and land for another.

The pond has a cemented ghat and water to the neck,

The lands dazzle with golden ripened corn on the deck. 

Slowly and surely would we exhaust the fine rice,

My head is the pledge, brother, this country is so nice.’ 

Song – 8

Naddyer Thakur and Mohua meet again in the deep of the night

Falgun51 went by and came the month Chaitra52,

The golden cuckoo cooed on trees to and fro.

With the colour of fire, the seasonal paddy ripened,

In the middle of the night, Naddyer Chand awakened.

The flute was beside his head, he picked it up by hand,

Blew a tune into the flute for Mohua to land.

A she-nightingale twittered from the sky nonstop,

The tune of the flute forced her sleep to drop. 

The baidya gang slept happily in the new house,

Came she mad out of the house, nobody to rouse.

Slowly, slowly, did she come to the river ghat,

Saw she Naddyer Thakur, flute in hand, ready for a chat. 

Embracing each other, close-knit neck-to-neck,

Naddyer Thakur speaks now, your ears to peck.

‘Will leave mother, will leave father, will leave home,

Taking you along, girl, I’ll leave this dome.’

Baidya’s daughter leaned onto Naddyer Thakur’s back,

‘I’m a mad woman, friend, you are the wreath around my neck.

Not seeing you for a moment, I just become sad,

In my cage of the heart is this love bird mad.

If you were a flower, love, if you were a flower,

My hair and braid would wear you in this bower.

Oh, let me drown in the river, love, eat up my head,

Leave the hope of getting me, return home instead.

As the two were immersed in love, Humra sees them,

Followed them from behind his passion failing to stem.

Just before dawn, Naddyer Thakur reached his home,

In the morn, anklets on her feet, she finishes her roam.

Song 9

Mohua’s Words at the Final Farewell

‘Listen dear, Naddyar Thakur, let me tell you this,

We will leave this village deep at night without miss.

I am leaving this house with my father and mother,

But wish you and I lived in a far country for each other.

My dear, this must be the last meeting between us,

How will I endure my days by without you thus?

A hapless woman me, with some dynastic prestige though

I go with my parents for my honour, must you know.

Abandoned are my house and land, abandoned are you,

How would I confine my mad love in a cage for you?

Oh, would I no longer hear the melodious flute of yours,

Reminiscing that tune will I spend the night in deep morose.

If you happen to remember me, love, keep my words,

You will visit me, dear, swear on the swords. 

Oh, on waking up would I not see your golden face,

Gone the pleasure of roaming together on the terrace.

On my departure, dear, let me tell you this one,

After a few days, northward your travel to be done.

Must you go to my home, friend, making no delay,

Southward, past the wild twigs and flowers by the bay.

This is where we baidya families live for a few months,

You must visit us there and be our guest once.

Must you come to my house, and sit on a pira53,

Will offer you drinks and puffed rice much in extra.

The puffed rice will be added to the sabri54 banana.

Home-grown buffalo curds on three meals in a cabana.

Today meet we for the last time I tell you this.’

They took their bamboos and ropes, did they nothing miss,

Disappeared from the village, the whole baidya team, at a hiss.

Song -10

Baidyas’ Team Escapes

‘The evening has passed, brother, let us stay no more,

Listen to my word, and another country to be our shore.

Let everything be left behind, home and the puffed rice,

Swear on my head brother, let us not here thrive.’

Took the bamboos, took the ropes, took all the other things,

Made good their escape the baidyas like nocturnal beings.

Left to themselves, the houses, and lands, the doors and windows,

Whoever heard this, eyes showed their shock, as the lore goes.

As the word went to the ear of Naddyer Thakur,

Threw out his mouthful of food to the ground in shock pure. 

His father called, and his mother called, but he did not listen,

As everybody spread the word that he became insane.

Song – 11

Naiddyar Chand Taking Leave of His Mother

‘The broken house stood there, with no cover for the roof,

Emptying the nest has the bird flown away leaving no proof.

In this very yard did the girl sit lonely,

Did she weave a threadless garland only for me.

Days go by, months go by too, won’t I see her ever,

I was a son of a Brahmin, and my fate is now severe.

Be my witnesses, you sun and moon, and you stars,

Bid me farewell, dear mother, I will become scarce.

I will go on a holy pilgrimage to a different land,  

Mother me, cook rice, retain the froth, by your lovely hand.

Me your son, don’t forbid me to go abroad, 

Bid me farewell, O dear mother, bid me for the road,

To a distant land, will I be a pilgrim with a heavy load.’

His mother said, ‘You, my son, are the pupil of my eye,

I become mad not seeing you, not to speak a lie.

If I don’t see you, son, I will put ropes around my neck,

Without you, my son, our family dynasty will be at stake.

I will rather beg from door to door with you by me,

I would rather waste the best paddy, but not let you go free. 

Mother’s half-life was spent messes of yours cleaning,

The Magh55 winter destroyed the other half with cold biting. 

If the son dies in a foreign land,

Intuition will tell his mother about what has happened.  

A bride I came to your father’s house, how can I stay here,

If you leave me, son, how this life will I bear? 

Song – 12

The Disappearance of Naddyer Chand

What the son has done in the deep of the night,

Paid respect at his mother’s feet in quiet.

‘Be the witness, you sun and moon, you be the witnesses,

Abandoning my house and land I am alien in all senses.

My father and mother and brother are now all behind,

Everybody I have, but to nobody I have to be kind. 

I salute the sun and the moon, I salute all,

Touching my parents’ feet in respect and thrall.’

In the deep of the night what the Thakur has done,

For the daughter of the Baidya, Thakur a stranger turned.

Song – 13

Naddyer Chand is on a quest to find Mohua

What is there with Goya, Kashi, or Brindaban,

Searching for Baidya’s daughter, Thakur is mad gone.

One month after another, and the third month goes by,

Not finding her anywhere, Thakur does not give up the try.

Where are the hills of Joyeta56, where is the deep forest,

Madly in love, Nadia’s son57 scours the world without rest.

Whoever he meets on the way, Thakur asks them about her,

‘Going how far can I find the trace of the Baidya, the stranger.

Put aside your cows, you cowherd, stop their fight,

But tell me if Mohua Beauty crossed this way this night.

Her hair is like clouds, her eyes shine like stars,

Is this the country, my parrot bird has flown to in tears?

She plays tricks on the bamboo pole, the daughter of Baidya,

Hair threaded like silver befitting her excellent tibia. 

Put in a dark room, the lass glitters like gold,

Or in the forest, a dazzling flower, on the mountain, a marigold.

For that very daughter have I become mad,

This very ghat is where Mohua filled her jar glad.

Why don’t I drown myself at this ghat,

My very heart came this way, the jar on her waist.

From a distance would I look at her beauty,

Where do I go now, love, to sight such purity?

I suffer like death not seeing you for a moment.

You wild birds fly far to discern her at any event. 

Tell me if the Baidya’s troupe this way went.’

Where the beauty belle used to cook,

Sitting there Naddyer Thakur cried and shook,

The hoofmarks of the horses and the goats ate grass,

Herein sat the girl through Falgun-Chaitra months.

Then followed the months of Boishakh and Jaistha58,

Running up and down does Naddya cry in plethora.

The Asharh and the Sraban59 pass in this way,

The roaring clouds from east to west do sway.

Bhadra and the Ashwin60 also follow by the day,  

To find her, Naddyer Chand, tries many a way. 

On the Durga Puja61, lament his father and mother,

The altar is empty which in his absence is darker.

Left behind his father, mother, and his brother,

Rains washed them, sun dried them, they felt worser.

A gift they made to Kartik, both the god and the month,

His mother cried and cried and tears had her eyes burnt.

Fagun came with a little chill set on the bank of Kangsha62,

Oh, Naddyar meets Mohua after a long time as if in a drama.

As the snake grabs the gem, or the thirsty gets the water,

Or the hornets mad to suck the honey of the lotus flower.

Song 14

The New Guest

In the evening came the guest from a foreign strand,

Just then Mohua Beauty goes to the river, a pitcher in hand.

Worried to no small degree does shrink her youthful body,

And the other pitcher girls whisper this to everybody. 

‘No sleep, no touching rice or water, the daughter,

A severe headache attacks her not long after. 

Her whole body ached with the pain of gouts,

Passed six months with her continuous crying bouts.

Neither was she cooking rice nor was she playing,

She reached a critical stage with her body paining. 

But what miracle is this happening now,

After six months, she stands erect like a bough.  

She cooked him a meal to her heart’s content,

Despite being a Brahmin, he ate the meal with great intent.

Humra Baidya called out, ‘Mainkia, you brother,

Let this guest be one of us as we are to one another. 

Live with me Thakur, live happily here,

Different countries we go to with poles and ropes to bear.

Learn our trade well with all the tricks, be with us,

We roam from county to county all the twelve months.’

Song 15

Humra gives a knife to Mohua to kill Naddyer Chand

It was a pitch-dark night, only the stars shone in the sky,

After a deep thought, Humra Baidya stands on his feet high.

On a bed of leaves under the Hijol tree by the river,

Was in heavenly sleep Nayddar Thakur as he slept never.

What happened that night listen to me for it,

Sitting by her head he calls her up from sleep neat.

‘Wake up my daughter Mohua, why sleep so much,

I am your father calling, open your eyes to my touch.

Sixteen years have I raised you through thick and thin,

So, my Mohua Beauty, keep this word within your skin.’

But the clouds were roaring inside her ears,

And dreaming of the foreign guest’s face in colours.

Hearing her father, she started up from sleep,

She saw a pair of burning coals in his eyes’ deep. 

‘You take this knife to the riverside,

Kill the Naddyer Thakur sleeping on the eastern ride.

In what grief have I raised you for sixteen years,

You keep my words, Mohua, my lass, in cheers.

An outsider he is, an enemy, and magic he knows,

Thrust this knife into his chest thus his life goes.    

Eat my head, dear daughter, eat my head,

Kill the enemy, throw the knife onto the riverbed.’

The stars disappeared, and the moon went hiding,

The golden moonlight was covered by the darkling.

Thinking deeply, then what the lass did,

Went to the Thakur with the knife indeed.

Down to her feet, and eyes swollen with crying,

She just became upset by too much thinking.

Song 16

The Victory of Love

Tying up her soul with stone, she sat at the head,

Thakur was sleeping under the hijol tree on a leafy bed.

As if the moon from the sky dropped on the earth,

Deeply in sleep Nayddyar Chan with hardly any breath.

One time, two times, and three times did she try,

Lifted the poisonous knife but ended with a sigh.

‘Wake up, Naddyer Thakur, why sleep so heavy,

The hapless Mohua calls you, open your eyes easy. 

My stony father gave me this knife to kill you,

To kill you, for me, is nothing but to woe.

Cruel are my father and mother, cruel is my heart,

How can I go back home by killing my hart?

Lighting up the candle, and then blowing it out,

But apart from you is nobody for me thereabout.

How can I return home by killing you,

My parents were unmirthful and killed me too.

No use for me to draw you into this pool of grief,

This poisonous knife should make my life brief.’ 

‘What are you doing, lass, sitting by my head,’

Waking up from a raw dream Thakur said.

Sees he the beauty crying over his head,

And holding a knife in her hand in dread.

‘Hearken to me, Thakur, listen to my words,

Hardened are my parents, tough are your heart’s chords.

My heart is tied to a stony slab, and my soul to stone,

To kill you has my father told me to have your head blown.

I was holding this poisonous knife to kill you,

But not you mate, I rather drive it my chest into.

Escape from here, go back to your mother country,

A beautiful woman you marry, and eat food happily.

You are the son of a Brahmin, the prince of a king,

In your house, I will be a blot for your wellbeing.

What I have come here for, but what I have done,

I should desert this world at once…….’

‘Left I have my mother and my father, and my clan,

As a hornet, I chase you, the wildflower, do understand.

For you, lass, have I travelled far and wide,

For you lass, to my country farewell, I bide.

Have I forsaken my race just to get you for me.

I won’t return home if I do not get thee.

With this knife on my throat, you strike me.’

‘Let my father and my mother, and the house deserted,

To a far country you and me will go as the eyes are led.

Wherever way do my eyes go, I will go there,

In the deep forest mate, our lives will we share.

My father keeps a speedy horse by that river,

Mounting on it to a far-off country will we disappear. 

Neither your parents know, nor anybody else,

A new country will we go to, sun and moon bless.’

The sunshine shimmers by the bank of the river,

Both of them mount the horse on a journey forever. 

As if the sun and the moon were the riders,

The horse spurred on and flew defying all bars.

Song – 17

The Hilly River before them, Naddyer Chand and Mohua Stood at the Bank

‘This powerful horse of my father, eat my head,

Go where my father and mother live in the shed,

First to my father and then to my mother, report,

Mohua, their daughter, was eaten by a tiger, in short.’

Slapping the horse on the rump, she unloosed the rein,

Ran off the race horse to where was the baidyas’ den.

‘Wide hilly river, with unruly waves beating around,

How to cross this river with such big waves abound.

Dry up, O river, show sandbars for a moment or two,

We have to cross the river now, we beg you.’

No sandbars showed up, and water filled the upstream,

‘Do we sight a merchant vessel loaded goods to the brim.

Not a bird it is, but the sails are flying,

Let us meet our fate and request the vessel for boarding.

Listen, you foreign merchant, going for trade,

Many countries do you travel to, good fortunes to crave. 

This river is fathomless, and we do not know any swimming,

If you help us cross this river, our two lives you are saving.’

Looking at the damsel becomes the merchant mad,

Called to his boatmen, `this is to make us glad.

Dock the boat close to the bank, get the two aboard,’

Sailed the merchant boat windward with the lovers onboard.

Song – 18

On the Merchant’s Vessel

Now, listen, what then happened to the lass,

The merchant grew a crush on her alas.

Charmed by her beauty the merchant grew mad,

Conspiring with his mates, he took a move bad.

As the vessel floated upstream, toilsome ploughing,

Suddenly, Naddyer Thakur was found drowning.

In the flood, black waves whirled upside down,

Took Naddyer Thakur to the riverbed with his crown. 

‘Neither my father nor my mother will see me anymore,

Falling into evil hands my life has reached the final score.

Bid me farewell girl, I seek goodbye from you,

Our last meeting on this earth with so much to woe.’

‘The waves that took my Naddyer Chand,

I will also jump into the river to lose my life grand.’

As the beautiful lass jumped, the boatmen caught her,

Oh, what mischief the evil merchant had to offer.

‘Black are the eyes, long is the hair,

Surely fate brings me this honeyed pear.

This lustrous youth of your lass goes in vain,

Love me lass, and respect my love to gain.

Such a golden juicy boat without a boatman,

With your youth gone, you will lose many a fan.

The honey is full to the brim, lass, you are a goddess,

Once I get you, my desire will have no redress.

Clothes will I give you, and a blue sari63 to wear,

A nosebud of raw gold will make everybody cheer. 

Will comb your hair, sprinkled with perfumed oil,

All maids and helpers of my house will ease your toil.

They will lay your bed, wash your feet,

My damsel on a golden couch to everybody’s greet.

Not to fret on winter nights wear cotton-packed shawls,

And a maid will stand by always to attend to your calls.

Elephants and horses in my stables, and guards all around,

You will fill up my house as the supreme matriarch sound.

Near the house is a tank in a square shape,

On that ghat, you will with me a swim take.

The inner yard has a flower garden,

Morn and eve, we will pluck flowers as if in heaven.  

In the night, we will sleep in the double temple,

In the winter, lass, my thigh will be your bed ample.

If you have trouble in sleep, then lie on my chest,

I will make a paan64 to drop into your mouth in great jest.

I will eat, and you will eat, both of us will eat together,

You will be with me during the trade tours in all weather.

Wherever I will get gold, a skilled worker I will employ,

To make you a lakh65 taka necklace for your joy.  

How much more will I give you there is no reckoning,

I will order gold bracelets for you with precious gems set in.

I will gift you a Udaytara sari at a lakh taka rare,

Will weave a diamond chain into your lovely hair.

Will make you an ornate chain and a gold bud for your nose,

Will gift you tingling anklets in hundreds if you chose.’

Hearing up to this, what deed Mohua did,

She prepared a paan for the merchant to quieten his greed. 

She hid the poison of the hilly chameleon in her hair,

She added lime and catechu to the paan with care.

She laughed and joked, and cajoled him to eat the paan,

And the jolly lover had eaten the paan like none.

‘What paan gave you me, lass, no end of taste,

Resting my head on your arm, let me sleep best.’

Eating the paan all the boatmen fell to the poison,

Seeing this, the lass’s laughter stretched to the horizon.

She had the sharp knife tied to her waist,

Which helped her to cut the anchor with haste.

Falling unconscious, the merchant lay flat on the boat,

She struck the bottom of the boat with an axe of note. 

She jumped into the river,

And the boat sank to the bottom forever.

Song -19

Beside the River into the Forest, Mohua’s searching for Naddyer Chand

‘Where deep in the forest blooms the flower, where burns the gem,

God has fated her to be born in luckless shame.

Tell, tell, tell me the bird, tell me the tree,

After dropping into the waves, where had gone he?

Listen to me first, you tiger and bear, before eating me,

Give me any tiny news where could he be?

You crocodile, live in water and see everything underneath,

Tell me about my friend, if he had left his breath.

I was a daughter of a baidya, travelled from land to land,

Left my own country, for a man no longer in my hand.

Peacocks and peahens perched on the branches,

Tell me the truth, if you know any, to live for chances.

O, into the river is slid down my dear necklace,

Who can I blame, when God has made me this luckless?’

Song – 20

Forest Path in the Hills, A Hermit’s Dilapidated Temple

‘Got not any fruit on the tree, the river water far away,

In hunger do I starve, life seems to have nothing to say.

O, you big tigers and bears go away a distance,

None of them looks at Mohua in this instance.

The big python there eats up a deer,

But goes away when the engrieved Mohua comes near.

Neither the land nor the river absorbs me,

Where would I go to get such a friend one and only?

For me did he abandon his happy house,

For me did he live by the river like a mouse.

The good merchant turned a villain for me,

For me, my soul mate lost his life in this river enemy.

No relief do I find but drowning myself in this river,

Or hang myself from a tree to seek life hereafter.

No, not yet should I die, before I more try,

Someone is in pain in the forest I can hear his cry.’

In the broken temple, a snake has dug a burrow,

There comes Mohua in the night to sleep thorough.

Dried-up flesh and the bones exposed,

Spots she a near-dead figure lying in the temple ill-robed.

O, can’t she recognize this handsome face at once,

It is Thakur Naddyer Chand she sees living on little chance. 

In tangled hair, and long moustache, and a beard,

Turned up a hermit with a stick in hand looking weird.

Seeing a girl the hermit asks in his mind,

What an unlikely event for my fate to be kind.

‘Listen to me, daughter, I am asking you,

Which country have you come from I have no clue.

Which king’s princess are you to suffer such banishment,

Which sin did you commit at this young age to be so repentant? 

Cruel are your parents, stone in their hearts,

How are they living at all sending you to the deserts?’

And then, brother, listen, what the daughter did,

She fell on the feet of the hermit crying indeed.

His tangled hair, moustache, and beard,

On his feet fell rolling the daughter uncared.

Unfolded she her story to the ascetic,

Listening to what the ascetic became sympathetic.

‘From the forest tree, I will pluck a leaf for you,

This leaf will save the life of your lover true.

A severe fever has stuck him to the bone,

Still is he alive though his life is nearly gone.

Holding the leaf to his mouth with river water,

This charmed leaf will save his life, so not to bother.’

One, two, three days pass by,

And on the fourth day, Naddyer Chand opens his eyes.

‘Plucking flowers for me, lass, then come alone,’

Far away does the daughter go for flowers heavily grown.

She brings flowers basketful every day,

Rice is what Naddyer Chand wants to eat if he may.

Mohua strikes her forehead in great dismay,

‘Where to get the rice from, you just say.’

She stopped plucking flowers, her mind in a fray.

But what happened here, listen with keen ears,

Looking at her youth, the hermit feels jealous.

Basketful fresh flowers are there many,

The hermit wakes at night a Mohua scary.

‘Wake up you daughter, how much will you sleep,

I am here to cure your husband in a sweep.

Today on the twentieth day of the moon, on this Saturday,

To cull medicine, lass, accompany me where the forest lay.’

Slowly she rises from sleep and goes with the ascetic,

Went she by the river to the forest on a journey epic.

He ogled her, ‘You, daughter, listen to me carefully,

I beg on your feet to let me enjoy your voluptuous body. 

Your beauty, lass, breaks the devotion of a saint,

To taste the honey of your flower is for me no taint.’

In her shattered mind, her senses were dull,

His words were like a blow making everything null.

Thinking over it, what the thing the daughter did,

She made him understand what to forbid:

‘First, save my husband, let me be true,

If you save him, I’ll surrender my body to you.’

Hearing this the hermit’s face turned ashen,

In reply, he said, ‘Lass, then listen.

I give you time for two days,

Poison him to death, as it pays.’

Falling in the hands of this monster,

The daughter thought to escape far.

She planned to escape with Naddyer Chand,

To run away to a far place on a false errand.

His body was fragile with a high fever,

Stood he not, walked he not, his condition so severe,

She thought hard, as had no time to spare.

O, she lifted Naddyer Chand on her shoulders,

She traversed a long path cluttered with boulders,

Alert lest the hermit spied on the journey of hers.

Song – 21

The Forest Couple

One, two, three, like this, six months passed,

Cured, Naddyer Thakur sat calm and poised.

Water she brings from the stream, fruits from the trees,

Consuming them, Naddyer Chand regained his energies.

Crossing the yard, Naddyer Thakur accompanies her,

To a far distance, they travelled together.

‘Having no place, house, friend, we live this way,

Roam about like birds and beasts, nowhere to stay.

The hilly stream falls in the way, but we swim across,

The cuckoos sing in the forest as if we had no loss.

Herein build us a house to ourselves,

Herein will we spend the days until life ends.

The placid river in the front with the waves dancing,

Herein will we sit together days and nights passing.

Colourful flowers all around, and branches with ripe fruits,

Herein, O daughter, drink sweet water from the running brooks.’

As Naddyer Thakur was eating, a fish-bone got stuck in his throat,

Badya’s daughter pledged an offering of a black goat.

Naddyer Chand ran a fever and headache in bed,

Badya’s daughter sat beside rubbing his forehead.

Naddyer Chand goes to the haat66 taking a shortcut,

 ‘Bring me a nosebud,’ Baidya’s daughter tells him just.’  

Plucking fruits from the forest, they eat in share,

They sleep on stones called Malam stones to be fair. 

At night the Thakur lifts the daughter on his chest,

In the daytime, they travel together in their mood best.

Holding his hand the beautiful daughter roams in the woods,

The forest fruits they eat and whatever their happiness includes.

Father and mother, they forgot, forgot their homes too,

Forget their countries, friends, and relatives, they chose to.

Blissfully were they passing days and nights,

But then something like a thunder increased their plights.

Song – 22

Touring in the Forest and Facing Danger

One day Naddyer Chand on an evening

With him was the beauty queen roaming.

They embraced each other’s necks in love,

Went he deep into the forest with his dove.

On the Malam stone, they sat together,

And intimately shoved their legs into one another.

At a far distance, the river and the waves played games,

O, right then she hears a tune that into her soul preys.

The damsel startled, and the Thakur asked,

‘Ay, you beauty, why you so, suddenly, gasped?

Why is your face looking so glum,

Disclose to me lass your life album.

Whose daughter are you, where is your home,

Why do you along with the baidyas roam?

I asked you, but you were silent, 

But today I want to know about you, it is urgent.

When I ask you, why do you shed tears,

You are suffering inside, intimidated by fears.

Only that morning had you told me half,

Humra Baidya stole you as a child playing a bluff.

Hear that flute tune coming from far away,

With the evening gone, home we return, no delay.’

‘If I live until tomorrow, I will tell you all,

Why has my severe headache returned as a gall.’

As leaning left, the plant collapses,

Slumped she likewise onto his chest sideways. 

‘Which snake bit you, daughter,

What haunts your mind I cannot gather?’

The dry leaves on the floor crack up instantly,

Amidst this pile sits Mohua the Beauty.

In a panic, she develops the black fever,

She swoons with her head in pain severe.

‘Lie down here a bit, lass, let me fetch some water’

But hardly she has any strength left to accept the offer.

Crying then says Mohua, ‘This is the last day,

Snake did not bite me as I passed my life gay.

The flute that you heard in the forest far,

Baidyas’ gang is coming as me they are after.

To protect myself is what the body hinted at,

This night, my heart, sleep lying on my chest.

I will not see your face rising in the morning,

Will end my life in the forest, the death angel waiting.

Register this word well, as I have said it,’

The night ended, the stars disappeared neat, 

Morning came, and they stood to their feet.

Song – 23

Humra’s gang 

On all sides were the hunting dogs on guard,

Looking for them was the Baidya’s gang hard.

Before them was Humra Baidya standing,

With the poisonous dagger his hand holding.

His eyes turned into burning coals,

His nose puffed like the cloud rolls.

‘If you want to live, daughter, respect my words,

Thrust this poisonous knife into his chest’s chords. 

My adopted son, Sujon gamester, is standing there,

You marry him and go with us, no patience to bear.’

‘How I will slaughter my husband by the throat,

When he is my heart’s port?

‘Sujon Gamester is a handsome youth,

Who have you married here is uncouth.

For you to marry him, let me take you to my country,

I was worried much not to find you in any valley.’

‘How will I go to your country, killing my friend,

I will not marry Sujon, whose name does me offend.

My friend is sun and moon, like raw gold,

Compared to him is Sujon, a glow-worm, a repulsive dolt.

Like solid gold, look at my friend,

Borrow my eyes to see his blend.’

Holding the knife, he roared like a black cloud,

Handed Mohua the poisonous knife with a big shout.

She looked at her husband sleeping on the couch,

Then she peered at his face to vouch.

‘Listen, my dear soulmate, let me tell you,

You bid farewell to Mohua to rue.

Listen to me, my couch-mate, listen seriously,

You understand why my mind is so unruly?’

‘Listen, I call you both my father and mother,

O, whose pearl of a child did you steal with no bother?

You stole me as a child emptying whose lap,

By stealing me whose chests did you put into a trap?

Since my birth, have I not seen my father and mother,

My misdeeds now force me to see a path another.’

(She thrusts the knife into her chest and falls to death. On Humra’s order the Baidya’s gang kills Naddyer Chand.)

Song – 24

Humra’s Lamentation; the Affection of the Couch Mate

‘A baby of six months raised I to be a grownup,

What will I now return with, I will just give up.

Listen, my daughter, open your eyes for one last time,

Say one word to me to console my soul soaked in crime.

I will not return anymore to my own land,

You all go home friends, for me is better the forest land.’

Humra hollered to his brother, ‘Mainkia, my brother,

I have no business going home, so do not bother.

Dig a grave for her to be buried,

Deserting his own home, Thakur our daughter married.

Both were mad for each other, for each other they loved.’

Acting on Humra’s word, in the grave they had her interred.

Interred the lovers together in the same grave,

Took farewell the baidya’s gang not at all brave.

Went everybody to everybody’s place, showing no crave.

There was left the maid of the bed, company in grief and bliss,

She cried, and through the days and nights continued to miss. 

She brings flowers filling up her sari67,

Sings to herself in the forest with eyes teary.

And washes the grave every day with her tears,

In deep grief, she becomes mad, unlike her peers.

‘Rise from sleep, mate, how much do you sleep,

Your couch-friend is calling you, she continues to weep.

The Baidya’s gang went back, they will not come again,

So, build your own house, and live without pain.

The evil gang of the Badya’s have all left,

They have all left, leaving you here bereft. 

We two mates will embrace and make flower garlands,

We two will arrange your husband’s heartlands.

The tears of the couch-mate soak the earth wet,

Thus ends Nadia’s Chand’s story leaving us in debt.

(The End of Mohua Pala)                         

End Notes

1 Dinesh Chandra Sen, Rai Bahadur, B. A., D. Litt., compiled and edited, Eastern Bengal Ballads: Mymensingh, Vol 1, Part 1. (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1923). This statement is asserted by Ronaldhsay in his foreword to the book, p. x. And Dinesh Chandra Sen, compiled and edited, Eastern Bengal Ballads, Volume IV, Part 1 (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1932), General Introduction, p. xxix., also refers to the period of the ballads’ vibrant existence.

2 A province or a large geographical area.

3 Farid Ahmed Dulal, Brihattoro Mymensinghh-er Lokosangskriti Sandha (Dhaka, ABISHKAR, 2013), p. 16.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Haor is the word for large marshy lands that turn into lakes during the monsoon rains, but paddy fields during the dry seasons. But most of the haors remain full of water in all seasons. 

7 Sen, Introduction, xxvi.

8 Sen, Introduction, xix.

9 Hijol is a common bushy tree grown in the marshy lands of Bangladesh.

10 Sen, Introduction, xxi.

11 Sen, Vol. 4, General Introduction, xviii.

12 Sen, Vol. 4, General Introduction, xx.

13 Sen, Vol. 1, Introduction, xxxiv.

14 Sen, General Introduction to Vol. 4, xii-xv.

15 Sen, General Introduction to Vol. 4, xi.

16 Sen, General Introduction, Vol. 4, xxix.

17 Swaymbara refers to an ancient practice when a young princess was allowed to elect her husband in public from many candidates desiring her hands.

18 Sen, Introduction, xxvii. 

19 Sen, Introduction, xxvi.

20 Sen, Introduction, xxx.

21 Pala is a Bengali word for a balladic story.

22 Dinesh Chandra Sen, the pioneering authority on the Eastern Bengal ballads, stipulates that the poem might have been composed around the 1620s (Preface i). But later scholars disagree thinking that it was composed at a later time. See “Mohua,” in the original as edited by Sudipta Mukherjee, Institute of Physics, Kolkata, p. 5.

23 According to Dinesh Chandra Sen this song was contributed by a Muslim composer later on: ‘a Mahomedan Gyen or ministrel’ (Preface, i.)

24 Sowdagar is the Bengali word for a merchant.

25 Malam is a reference to a stone etched with footmarks.

26 The word for greeting in Arabic, widely used in the Muslim culture.

27 A prominent deltaic mangrove forest spreading over the southwestern parts of Bangladesh and the southern part of West Bengal, India. 

28 A mythical figure renowned for his hunting skills.

29 Ustad is a Hindi word for a maestro, but widely accepted in Bengali and other Indian languages. 

30 Dinesh Chandra Sen spells it as Homra but I followed the exact Bengali pronunciation which should be Humra. 

31 Garo Hills is a range in the Himalayan Mountains, situated on the northern border of Bangladesh, occupying the southern part of Assam in India.

32 This is the only time when the brother is mentioned as Mankia, which is retained by Dinesh Chandra Sen, but in the rest of the poem he is called Mainkia, which I have followed throughout.

33 ‘Countries’ and ‘country’ are used in this translation for the Bengali word ‘desh’ which does not always mean an independent country, but a region or province, in which sense the words are used here.

34 “The river Dhonu is mentioned in the ballad of Kenaram. It flows by Pergana Khaliajuri, which was in those days known as the ‘Bhati’.” Sen, Introduction, xxx. 

35 In this poem, Mohua is addressed several times as ‘kannya’, that is daughter. I’ve used many synonyms for it to fit the context.  The synonyms are lass, damsel, daughter, beauty, child, etc.

36 Baidya is the Bengali word for a gypsy and/or a snake charmer. This word differs from another well-known Bengali word, ‘vaidya’ which means a traditional Indian healer.  When Humra Baidya is mentioned, it is with capital ‘B’, but in other cases, the generative small letter ‘b’ is used.

37 An indigenous flower of Bengal.

38 Mohua, being raised by Baidya Humra, has become a baidya woman.

39 Tota is the Bengali word for parrot.

40 Tia is also another bird like the parrot and tota.

41 Doel is a nightingale in Bengal.

42 Rao Chandal is a folk character, who is ‘their talisman of success’ (Dinesh Chandra Sen, p. 2).

43 Mohua Sundari in English is Mohua, the Beauty.

44 Palank or palinka refers to a big bedstead. ‘Palank maid’ means a maidservant who is responsible for Mohua’s overall well-being. I have used phrases like ‘palank-maid’, ‘palank-mate’, and ‘couch-mate’ to refer to her. It seems to me that Dinesh Chandra Sen unjustifiably converges the maid into the word ‘Palanka’ and calls her Palanka’.    

45 Nader Chand is the poem’s hero, while Mohua is the heroin. Nader Chand is also called ‘Thakur’, usually a Bengali word for a priest, who is always a Brahmin—designating a priestly caste. Nader Chand is a Brahmin Thakur, and in this poem, it has become part of his name. He is also called Naddyer Thakur or Nadia’s Thakur.  All are retained here by the context. 

46 The Lame is indicating a lame man who acts as a messenger for Nader Chand. To indicate his specialty, I’ve used the word as a proper name. 

47 Taka is the name of the present-day Bangladesh currency. It was also used by the same name in ancient Bengal.

48 Bari is a Bengali word for home, or homestead.

49 Rupees, currency name in India and Pakistan, is used here as a variation for taka.

50 Falgun or Fagun is the 11th month of Bengali year, a month famous for its springtime flowers, corresponding to mid-February to mid-March. 

51 Chaitra is the last month of the Bengali year, corresponding to mid-March to mid-April. 

52 Pira is a Bengali word for a small tool to sit.

53 Sabri is a superior brand of banana grown locally in Bengal. 

54 Magh is supposedly the coldest month in Bengal, corresponding to mid-January to mid-February. 

55 The name of a local hill, a part of the Garo Hills.

56 Nadia is a prominent district in West Bengal. But whether it is that Nadia the poem is referring to I’m not sure. It may be a local place too.

57 Boishakh and Jaistha are the first two Bengali months, corresponding to mid-April to mid-June.

58 Ashar and Sraban, these two months consist of the rainy season in Bengal, corresponding to mid-June to mid-August. 

59 Bhadra and Ashwin are the post-rainy season months in Bengal, corresponding to mid-August to mid-October.

60 The biggest religious festival of the Hindu, usually falling in October. 

61 Kanghsa is the name of a river in Netrokona, Mymensingh. 

62 Sari is a very common wearing for women in the subcontinent.

63 Paan is the betel leaf processed as an after-meal digestive in south Asian cultures.

64 Lakh in Bengali refers to one hundred thousand, 100000.

65 Haat is the Bengali word for a popular village market that sits twice a week.

66 Sari is the traditional wearing, a long piece of designed cloth worn by the subcontinental women.

Illustration : Rajat