Poetry
The Field of the Embroidered Quilt
নকশী কাঁথার মাঠ
Jasimuddin · 1929
Synopsis
Rupai, a young peasant, knows how to thatch a roof, wield the fighting stick and play the bamboo flute. Saju, from the neighbouring village, passes in front of his house with other girls who are singing to call the rain; their eyes meet, and Rupai's mother has the girl asked for through a go-between. The couple live happily until the night when word comes that people from another village are cutting the ripe rice on their land: Rupai runs to fight, there are deaths, and he must flee. Saju waits for him every evening, a lamp in her hand.
Context
The poem appeared in 1929, two years after its author's first collection, at a time when Bengali poetry was turning to European models; it takes up, on the contrary, the form of the old village ballads, in fourteen episodes each of which stands alone. The folklorist Dinesh Chandra Sen praised its melody and rhythm. Gazi Alimuddin Mannan drew from it a dance drama for the Bulbul Lalitakala academy in Dhaka, to music by Khadem Hossain Khan, which took it to Iran, Iraq and Pakistan.
Who it is for
A long narrative poem in simple language, nourished by village songs; the title names the kantha, a quilt that Bengali women sew from old saris layered together and embroider.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as a masterpiece of the Bengali language, it brought the word nakshi kantha into the usage of the learned.