If you send me to exile

 If you send me to exile

If you send me to exile, I shall raise the ring to my lips,

  I will drink poison to death

A plaintive light has lit Bengal 

  Clouds stoop low to the river head,

 The meadow stretches to the horizon, motionless --

This is my three-and-a-half acre of land

If you send me to exile, I shall raise the ring to my lips,

 I will drink poison to death

Blood spilled on the paddy fields ...

  Here, where the folks had shed their sweat

Even now, men worship the river as they dip for a bath 

Even now,  in plantain boats on the river

Float robbers and fugitives!

Torrents of fire keep raining on cities and ports,

                               Yet, rains polish smooth each beautiful dawn,

 Mayhem in the markets, vengeance in the villages,

Fireflies glow in the grapefruit trees,

Princely palaces hold cowards'  fair,

 Bullets and Explosions,

Sly pythons fake disguises aplenty,

Grass-flowers shake in midnight dew

This is my three and a half acre land

If you send me to exile, I will raise the ring to my lips,

I will drink poison to death

In fog a child walks to the morning school,

Silently waits a crane by the calm lake

Have I forgotten everything?

Memory, are you such a deceit?

Have I not seen how cotton fleece flew

On lazy evenings?

Giggling of the girls like white flowers

Beside hardworking buffalo shouldered men

Have I not smelled the fragrance of date syrup,

Have I not heard the shrill cry of kites in afternoons?

A plaintive light has lit Bengal 

This is my three-and-a-half acre of land

If you send me to exile, I shall raise the circlet to my lips,

  I will drink poison to death

Author: Sunil Gangopadhyay

Translation: Arindam Basu