Jho'r'-ঝড়

 .

ঝড়

 .

সাগর-বিস্তারে ঢেউয়ের খেলা,

গভীরে প্রবল ধারা।

দূর দিগন্তের ঝড় এসে যায়,

ঢেকে দেয় নভ, সারা।

 .

ঘরে ঘরে হয় তর্ক-বিবাদ,

দেশে দেশে হয় কলি।

ধন-ক্ষমতার যজ্ঞে সদা

নিরীহ জনের বলি।

. 

নৌয়ের পালে সুখের হাওয়ার

বদলে, দুঃখ, ক্লেশ।

ঝুঁকির ভ্রমণ, জীবন-তরীর,

শুরুর থেকে শেষ।

 .

তুমুল ঝড়ে বিপদ আসে।

ধূসর, গগন-ভূমি।

নীল আকাশের আশায় থাকে

পিঁপড়ে—আমি-তুমি।

. 

রবিবার, ১৬ জুন, ২০২৪ খ্রি.

বার্ক্লি, কালিফোর্নিয়া

.

The Foghorn

The Foghorn

As the autumn ends, a foghorn blows
On a ship on New York Bay,
For the mist at sea has turned to fog,
As night replaces day.

And I at home can hear that sound—
A distant, rumbling moan—
And so am one with the ship at sea
That was, till now, unknown.

And from that ship I see the shore
With the fog-dimmed, twinkling lights,
As shipmates’ thoughts return to those
They had sadly left behind.

******
 
It moves upon the waters, dark;
It slows; it pauses, stops.
And the waters lap on the sides of the ship,
As they do on the distant rocks.

The lanterns shine on those waters and
On the fog that swirls around,
As the windows mist and there issues forth
That eerie blast of sound.

The autumn ends and the winter comes
And the fogs are forming still.
But the foghorn blows on New York Bay,
As time is standing still.

2018 November 2, Fri.
Brooklyn, New York

  

Little Minds

Little Minds

Let us wander in the mountains,
Where the peaks are shining high
And the streams that run in valleys
Reflect the sun and sky.

Let us loiter by the ocean side
And look out to the sea,
Where the waves are racing landwards
To those like you and me.

The mountain does not know us.
The ocean heeds us not.
By neither are we needed—
Who will each be soon forgot.

With you and I forgotten
And all our strivings vain,
The peak will still be shining
And the wave will crash again.

******

And that is why it’s mindful
To climb up on the hill
And to walk beside the ocean,
So our little minds are still.

There’s a mind, that we are part of,
That in silence can be heard,
Though it does not know of language
And never speaks a word.
 
We can hear it if we listen
In the pauses of our thoughts,
As we learn to be accepting
That we’re each a string of naughts.

From nothing, we have risen—
And to nothing, we’ll subside.
We can joyfully embrace this—
Or, try, from this, to hide.

******

It is difficult for some of us,
Who strive to be the heroes,
To let go of their little minds
And realize they’re zeros.

So do not say these things to Trump
Or speak of this to Modi.
Make off, instead, with Donald’s pants—
Or run, with Naren’s dhoti.

They may try to hide their penises
And all the world may laugh—
And then perhaps they might perceive
Their little minds were chaff.

They might go then to the ocean
Or climb up on the hill—
And for once be no more needy,
As their little minds are still.

******

We once could see the starry sky
With its myriad specks of light.
We knew that we were nothing then
But now have lost that sight.

And so had kings and emperors
Who ruled in times now past.
Now even common folk forget
That none of us will last.

Let’s each release the little mind;
Breathe in, breathe out, be still—
So each can hear that ocean wave
And look out from that hill.

But being only mortals, we
May seek reminders, so
We need at times to see that sky
And hear that ocean roar.

2018 October 26th, Fri.
Brooklyn, New York 

  

Bay Lights

Bay Lights

The past few days were hot and humid both, as the dog days often are, this time of year.

I’d wondered if the breezes by the ocean might be cooler than the air that rose from heated streets.

And so tonight I walked down to the Bay and saw the distant lights reflected from the tops of waves.  These swept towards the shore and softly splashed—again and yet again.

And all the rest was dark, as waters are on moonless nights—with stardust spread above.

But city lights had hidden much. 

I only saw the stars of Coney and of Staten Island, with the glowworms crawling on the Verrazano  Bridge—as fireflies slowly rose and arced from JFK.

And faraway, beyond the Jersey shore, from time to time I saw the lightning flash and set ablaze a bank of clouds—without a sound.

And walking back, before the thunderstorm, I saw the headlights speeding on the Belt, in obvious haste to go to—where they went.

The breezes?  Yes, they’d cooled me down a bit.  They freshened as I walked towards my home.

I’d read that LED’s make more of light and less of heat.  On Brooklyn’s sleeping streets, they’d turned the night, in parts, to pallid day.

The storm?  It never came.  It still is hot.

But I remember walking through the night and seeing then the lights, by Gravesend Bay.

And that is still relief.

2018 August 1st, Wed.
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York.

Probhater Pal—প্রভাতের পাল—The Distant Sails

This is written using verb conjugations and vocabulary that would now be considered archaic, but which were still in use in much of what we read when I was in elementary school in Bengal.  I have provided, again, two Roman transcriptions. The first follows the current standard pronunciation and is summarized in the preface to the post at  Bharot Xadhin (India Free).

I have inserted (in blue) after each stanza in that transcription, an approximation to a word-for-word translation into English.  When a reader whose first language belongs to the European mainstream tries to decipher those inserts, she/he might note how weird the syntax of Bengali appears to someone  encountering such a syntax for the first time.

The reader might then begin to appreciate how strange and difficult the syntax of an European language, such as English, seems to an Asian who is a native speaker of, say, Turkish, Hindi-Urdu, Bengali, Tamil, Mongolian, Korean or Japanese—unless that speaker has been exposed, from an early age, to either that European tongue or to a syntactically similar language.
 
The second transcription is the "machine transcription" obtained via http://google.com/translate, which I have lightly edited, in the way that I had described in earlier posts. Notes on that transcription scheme are at the very end of the post at  Beside the Sea--Xagor Tire .

Finally, at the end of the current post, there is a translation into English, which is fairly literal.
--------------------------------------------------

প্রভাতের পাল

প্রভাতে নদীর কিনারে দাঁড়াইয়া,
দেখিলাম দূরে, পাল
মেলিয়া চলিতেছে, হাওয়ার বাহনে,
দূর দেশের সাম্পান৷

কোথা হইতে আসিয়াছে,
ভাবিয়া ভাবিয়া,
মনে মনে ভাসিয়া দূরে,
আসিলাম বন্দরে৷

দেখিলাম, বিদেশি শহর৷
পাসে ক্ষেত৷ দূরে,
বনে ঢাকা পর্বতমালা,
কুয়াশা চুড়ায়৷

ঢেউয়ের উপর দুলিতেছে জাহাজ৷
দূরে ও নিকটে পাল৷
দূর থেকে দেখা, পিপড়ার মত,
বিদেশী শ্রমিকের ঝাঁক৷
   
‘ইহা কি বর্মা, নাকি মালয়, ছিয়াম,
কাম্বোজ, ভিয়েত, চীন?’
স্বপ্নে যেন প্রশ্ন কাহার
কানে আসিল ধীর৷

‘জানি না,’ কহিয়া দিলাম জবাব,
‘জানি না, কোন দেশ৷’
বলাতে, দেখিলাম দৃশ্য যেন
নিমেষে হইল শেষ৷

ফিরিলাম নিজ দেশে,
শীতল সকালে৷
দেখিলাম, দূরে, সেই পাল
অদৃশ্য প্রায়৷

কোথা হইতে আসিয়াছিল সেই
দূরে দেখা পাল,
জানি না৷ জানি না, তাহা
কোথাকার সাম্পান৷

সকাল ১০:৩৮, শনিবার, ১৩ই জুন, ২০১৫ খ্রি 
ব্রুক্লিন, নিউয়র্ক
--------------------------------------------------

If you are looking for an English translation that is more easily comprehensible than what is given, directly below (in the blue inserts after each stanza), please see the very end of this post.

Note that the blue inserts provide close to word-for-word translations from the Bengali, preserving the original word order.  This is meant to help those who seek a better understanding of the words and syntax of the Bengali original.

For the Bengali postpositions -e and -te, I have uniformly used the (suffixed) English preposition "in", although -e and -te could also signify "at", "on", "into", etc., depending on the context.

Bengali has a principle of  "least redundancy", "economy of endings", "least effort" or "laziness" -- call it what you will -- through which (among other things) plural endings are dispensed with when not required for clarity.  So the word pal ("sail" or "flock/herd") could, depending on the context,  mean either "sail" or "sails "(or "herd" or "herds").  I have translated pal in the blue inserts as "sail".  In the more idiomatic translation, at the very end of the current post, I have written "sails" instead, envisioning a sampan (Chinese-style flat-bottomed  boat or small ship) with more than one sail.

In Hindi-Urdu, tense, person, number and gender are all reflected in the verb declensions. The form of a Bengali verb changes with tense and person, but not with number or gender.  The English verb form changes with tense, person and number, although for the last two the only form that still differs in standard modern English is the third person singular (in the present tense and, for the auxiliary verb, in the present perfect tense).  I have, in the blue inserts, used the singular forms of the English verbs.

In Bengali, the verb "to be" is usually omitted in the present tense.  I have followed this practice in the blue inserts.  So be ready for some verb-less sentences in these inserts.

If the blue inserts are incomprehensible even after several readings, please take recourse to the translation at the very end of this post.
--------------------------------------------------

Probhater Pal

Morning Sail

Probhate nodir kinare da~r’aiya,
dekhilam dure, pal
melia coliteche, haoar bahone,
dur dexer xampan.

morning-in river's edge-in standing,
saw-I far-in,  sail
unfurled moving-is, air’s carriage-in,
far country’s sampan.

Kotha hoite axiache,
bhabia bhabia,
mone mone bhaxia dure,
axilam bo`ndore.

Where from come-has,
pondered pondered,
mind-in mind-in floated far-in,
came-I port-in.

Dekhilam, bidexi xo`hor.
Paxe khet.  Dure,
bone d’haka parbatmala,
kuaxa curae.

Saw-i foreign city.
Side-in field.  Far-in,
woods-in covered mountain-necklace [chain],
mist peak-in.

D’heuer upo`r duliteche jahaj.
Dure o niko`t’e pal.
Dur theke de`kha, pipr’ar mo`to,
bidexi sromiker jha~k.

Wave's on swaying-is ship.
Far-in and near-in sail.
Far from seen, ant like,
foreign workers’ flock.

‘Iha ki Bo`rma, naki Malo`e, Chiam,
Kamboj, Bhiet, Cin?’
Xo`pne je`no prosno kahar
Kane axilo dhir.

"This-the ? Burma, not? Malaya, Siam,
Cambodia, Vietnam, China? "
Dream-in as if question whose
ear-in came slow.

‘Jani na,’ kohia dilam jo`bab,
‘Jani na, kon dex.’
Bo`late, dekhilam drixxo je`no
nimexe hoilo xex.

“Know-I not,” said gave-I reply,
“Know-I not, which country.”
Said-in, saw-I vision as if
blink-in became end.

Phirilam nijo dexe,
xito`l xo`kale.
Dekhilam, dure, pal
o`drixxo prae.

Returned-I own country,
cool morning-in.
Saw-I, far-in, sail
invisible almost.

Kotha hoite axiachilo xei
dure de`kha pal,
jani na.   Jani na, taha
kothakar xampan.

Where from came that
far-in seen sail,
Know-I not.  Know-I not, that-the
which-place’s sampan.

xo`kal 10:38, Xonibar, 13i Jun, 2015 khri
Bruklin, Niu Io`rk

morning 10:38, Saturday, 13th June, 2015 AD
Brooklyn, New York   
--------------------------------------------------

Prabhātēr Pāl

Prabhātē nadīr kinārē dām̐ṛā'iẏā,
dēkhilām dūrē, pāl
mēliẏā calitēchē, hā'ōẏār bāhanē,
dūr dēśēr sāmpān.

Kōthā ha'itē āsiẏāchē,
bhābiẏā bhābiẏā,
manē manē bhāsiẏā dūrē,
āsilām bandarē.

Dēkhilām, bidēśi śahar.
Pāsē kṣēt.  Dūrē,
banē ḍhākā parbatmālā,
kuẏāśā cuṛāẏ.

ḍhē'uẏēr upar dulitēchē jāhāj.
Dūrē ō nikaṭē pāl.
Dūr thēkē dēkhā, pipṛār mata,
bidēśī śramikēr jhām̐k.

‘Ihā ki Barmā, nāki Mālaẏ, Chiẏām,
Kāmbōj, Bhiẏēt, Cīn?’
Sbapnē yēna praśna kāhār
kānē āsila dhīr.

‘Jāni nā,’ kahiẏā dilām jabāb,
‘Jāni nā, kōn dēś.’
Balātē, dēkhilām dr̥śya yēna
nimēṣē ha'ila śēṣ.

Phirilām nija dēśē,
śītal sakālē.
Dēkhilām, dūrē, sē'i pāl
adr̥śya prāẏ.

Kōthā ha'itē āsiẏāchila sē'i
dūrē dēkhā pāl,
jāni nā.  Jāni nā, tāhā
kōthākār sāmpān.

sakāl 10:38, Śanibār, 13i Jun, 2015 khri 
Bruklin, Ni'uẏark
--------------------------------------------------

The following English translation is fairly literal.  However, I have added, to this translation, an explanatory, somewhat repetitive,  concluding stanza that is absent in the original.
--------------------------------------------------
     
The Distant Sails
  
From the river’s shore, I saw, this morning,
far away, with sails unfurled,
a sampan, from a distant land,
driven by the wind.

I wondered where it came from,
and wondering, I floated in my mind,
it seemed, until I saw,
across the waves, a busy port.

I saw a city, in a foreign land.
Nearby were fields and farms.  Afar
were wooded mountains—and their peaks
were shrouded then in mist.

Ships were rolling on the waves.
Their sails were far and near.
And in the distance, I could see
the workers in the docks—like little ants.

“ Is this Burma?  Or is it Malaya, Siam,
Cambodia, Vietnam—or China?”
I heard this question, spoken soft and slow,
within my dream.

“I do not know,” I answered,
“I do not know this land.”
And as I spoke, the vision
came to its end.

I was back in my land,
in the cool of the morning.
I saw, afar, those sails
about to disappear.

I do not know from where it came—
that ship I saw in the distance.
I do not know.  I do not know
from where it came—

those sails of the morning,
that sampan
of my dreams—I do not know
from where they came.

2015 June 13th Sat, 10:38 am
(translated into English July 18th, Sat.
with a final stanza added to the translation)
Brooklyn, New York
  

The Best of Times

 
The Best of Times
 
My summers, in these northern climes,
Have often been the best of times,
When I could nap again at noon
And wonder at the rising moon.
 
On summer afternoons, I’ve made
My way between the sun and shade.
I’ve reveled in the grasses green
And stared at clouds that float serene
Within that arcing summer sky
That I’ll remember till I die.
 
I’ve walked beside the shining sea
And learned again to simply be,
As, blowing cool, the ocean breeze
Has set my heart and mind at ease.
 
I’ve watched the waves and seagulls dance
And seen, afar, the storm’s advance.
I’ve seen the fiery lightning’s flash
And heard the booming thunder’s crash.
And time and time and time again
I’ve sheltered from the summer rain.
 
My summers in the northern zone
Were mostly spent while quite alone.
And yet, I hardly would complain
If I could live them, each, again.

My summers, I have taken slow,
With often nowhere else to go,
Except where I had worked the year.
And yet, those summers still were dear.
My summers, in these northern climes,
Have often been the best of times.

2015 July 6th, Mon., 7:05 pm
Gravesend Bay, Brooklyn, New York
  

Beside the Sea—Xagor Tire—সাগর তীরে—Sāgar Tīrē

 
This is a curious piece, with some archaisms that might seem incongruous.  It is followed by a translation into Bengali, which is in three versions:

1. firstly, in my own strange Roman transcription scheme, which follows the pronunciation rather than the standard spelling, as was briefly summarized in the preface at http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2014/02/bharot-xadhin-indias-freedom.html ; 
2. secondly, in the beautiful traditional Bengali script, attempting to reproduce the the standard spelling;  
3. and finally, in the Roman transcription (which I will refer to as the "machine transcription") provided by the software program at http://google.com/translate.  A note on this transcription can be found at the very end of the current post.

Hopefully, these three versions, taken together with the English original, might be of some assistance to those attempting to learn Bengali.  However, for those with little or no prior knowledge of Bengali, nor of other Indian languages, a word-for-word translation might be needed, as the word-order is radically different between English and most Indian languages.  I have not provided this here.

It is often difficult to translate a poem in a literal fashion. But in this case, much (though not all) of the translation is quite literal, without, hopefully, too much harm to the sensibilities. Some might say that this is because of the seemingly absurd nature of the content. Nonsense translated literally might at times make just as fine a nonsense as the original!  Protesting feebly, I will leave you to judge.
--------------------------------------------------------
     
Beside the Sea

When waves reflect the sun at noon
Or dance beneath the shining moon,
Beside the broad and shimmering sea,
I walk and watch and wait for thee.

When seagulls flee before the squall,
To thee, across the waves, I call.
When swells are heaving in the dark,
Thine answer comes.  I turn and hark.
 
But then I ask, “Is that the wind?”
So heaven tortureth those who’ve sinned.
Yet, unrepentant still, I cry,
“The gods’ commandments, I defy!”

******
  
As ants that crawl upon the land,
Can humans ever understand
The deep, the vast, the endless sea,
With all her trove of mystery?

How stormy was the sea that day,
When I saw thee go thy way.
But even when she's still, I see
Her whim hath cruelly taken thee.

******
    
By fortune met and separated,
Are those, who might perhaps have mated,
If chance and destiny had turned
And what the gods decreed had spurned.
 
And so, to where I last had seen thee,
On that day so gray and windy,
I return—to seek and pine,
By that shore, where thou wast mine.

At sunrise, when the air is chill,
Beside the sea, I’m walking still,
As I had been at sunset time,
With thoughts of thee—and this, my rhyme.
 
2015 June 21st, Mon., 6:57 pm
Gravesend Bay, Brooklyn, New York
(translated into Bengali, July 1st, Wed.)
--------------------------------------------------------
 
Xagor Tire

Dupurer roder nice, rater ca~der aloe,
nace jo`khon xari xari d’heu,
ha~ti to`khon bixal, jhikmike xomudrer tire,
tomar o`pekkhae.

Xo`nkocil jo`khon palae jho`r’er theke,
to`khon tir theke d’aki tomae.
Rater o`ndhokare, d’heuer xaxer majhe,
Xuni je`no dure, tomar jo`bab.

To`be bhabi to`khon, “Ot’a ki haoa?”
Papir pir’o`n—nixt’hur debder xasti et’a!
Nachor’ ami, c~echie ut’hi tai,
“Manbo na ko`khono, tomader dabi!”
 
******

Pi~pr’er moto d’angae he~t’e be`r’ae manux.
Tara ki ko`beo bujhbe eke?
Ei gobhir, o`xim, o`par mo`haxagor?
Ei dha~dha-he~yali bho`ra mo`hol?

Jho`rer majhe gele tumi
ei xagorer buke.
Xagor jo`khon xanto, to`khon
tao to dekhi xet’a.

******
   
Je ko`pale jeta, xei ko`palei har!

Kon po`the je xanti chilo, dut’i be`lar xukh,

Janbo na go, janbo na go,
Janbo na go ta.

Ei o`kul, obiram xagorer tire,
pe-e-o, har’ie chilam tomae.
Tai to barbar axi—rate, dine.
Bhabi, tumi e`khon kothae?

Xondhe be`lae xurjo d’obe,
bhor be`late ot’he.
Dui belatei, tomar kho~je,
ha~t’i, xagor tire.

xondhe 6:57,  Xombar, 29e Jun
Grevzend’ Be, Bruklin, Niu Io`rk
(Banglae onubad, Budhbar, 1la Julai)
--------------------------------------------------------
   
সাগর তীরে
  
দুপুরের রোদের নীচে, রাতের চাঁদের আলোয়,
নাচে যখন সারি সারি ঢেউ,
হাঁটি তখন বিশাল, ঝিক্মিকে সমুদ্রের তীরে,
তোমার অপেক্ষায়৷ 

শঙ্খচিল যখন পালায় ঝড়ের থেকে,
তখন তীর থেকে ডাকি তোমায়৷
রাতের অন্ধকারে, ঢেউ এর শ্বাসের মাঝে,
শুনি যেন দূরে, তোমার জবাব৷
  
তবে ভাবি তখন, "ওটা কি হাওয়া"?
পাপীর  পীড়ন—নিষ্ঠুর দেবদের শাস্তি এটা!
নাছোড় আমি, চেঁচিয়ে উঠি তাই,
"মানবো না কখনো, তোমাদের দাবি!"

****** 

পিঁপড়ের মত ডাঙায় হেঁটে বেড়ায় মানুষ৷
তারা কি কবেও বুঝবে একে?
এই গভীর, অসীম, অপার মহাসাগর?
এই ধাঁধা-হেঁয়ালি ভরা মহল?
  
ঝড়ের মাঝে গেলে তুমি
এই সাগরের বুকে৷
সাগর যখন শান্ত, তখন
তাও ত দেখি সেটা৷
   
****** 
 
যে কপালে জেতা, সেই কপালেই হার!
কোন পথে যে শান্তি ছিল, দুটি বেলার সুখ,
জানব না গো, জানব না গো,
জানব না গো তা৷
    
এই অকূল, অবিরাম সাগরের তীরে,
পেয়েও, হারিয়েছিলাম তোমায়৷
তাই ত বারবার আসি—রাতে, দিনে৷
ভাবি, তুমি এখন কোথায়?

সন্ধ্যে বেলায় সূর্য় ডোবে,
ভোর বেলাতে ওঠে৷
দুই বেলাতেই, তোমার খোঁজে,
হাঁটি, সাগর তীরে৷
  
সন্ধ্যে ৬:৫৭, সোমবার, ২৯এ জুন
গ্রেভ্সেণ্ড বে, ব্রুক্লিন, নিউয়র্ক
(বাংলায় অনুবাদ, বুধবার, ১লা জুলাই)
--------------------------------------------------------

Directly below is the "machine transcription" (from http://google.com/translate)
of the verses in Bengali script directly above.  A note on this machine transcription has been added at the end of the post.  I have lightly edited the transcription, as described at the start of that note.
--------------------------------------------------------

  

Sāgar Tīrē

Dupurēr rōdēr nīcē, rātēr cām̐dēr ālōẏ,
nācē yakhan sāri sāri ḍhē'u,
hām̐ṭi takhan biśāl, jhikmikē samudrēr tīrē,
tōmār apēkṣāẏ.

Śaṅkhacil yakhan pālāẏ jhaṛēr thēkē,
takhan tīr thēkē ḍāki tōmāẏ.
Rātēr andhakārē, ḍhē'u ēr śbāsēr mājhē,
Śuni yēna dūrē, tōmār jabāb.

Tabē bhābi takhan, "Ōṭā ki hā'ōẏā"?
Pāpīr pīṛan—niṣṭhur dēbdēr śāsti ēṭā!
Nāchōṛ āmi, cēm̐ciẏē uṭhi tā'i,
"mānbō nā kakhanō, tōmādēr dābi!"

******

Pim̐pṛēr mata ḍāṅāẏ hēm̐ṭē bēṛāẏ mānuṣ.
Tārā ki kabē'ō bujhbē ēkē?
Ē'i gabhīr, asīm, apār mahāsāgar?
Ē'i dhām̐dhā-hēm̐ẏāli bharā mahal?

Jhaṛēr mājhē gēlē tumi
ē'i sāgarēr bukē.
Sāgar yakhan śānta, takhan
tā'ō ta dēkhi sēṭā.

  

******
    
Yē kapālē jētā, sē'i kapālē'i hār!
Kōn pathē yē śānti chila, duṭi bēlār sukh,
jānba nā gō, jānba nā gō,
jānba nā gō tā.

Ē'i akūl, abirām sāgarēr tīrē,
pēẏē'ō, hāriẏēchilām tōmāẏ.
Tā'i ta bārbār āsi—rātē, dinē.
Bhābi, tumi ēkhan kōthāẏ?

Sandhyē bēlāẏ sūrẏa ḍōbē,
bhōr bēlātē ōṭhē.
Du'i bēlātē'i, tōmār khōm̐jē,
hām̐ṭi, sāgar tīrē.

Sandhyē 6:57, Sōmbār, 29ē Jun
Grēbhsēṇḍ Bē, Bruklin, Ni'uẏark
(Bānlāẏ anubād, Budhbār, 1lā Julā'i)
--------------------------------------------------------

Note on the "Machine Transcription"

I have lightly edited the machine transcription above, provided by the program on the server  at http://google.com/translate.  I have done this mainly to delete the unnecessary short a's that should not be pronounced and to include periods and capitalization that were missed by the transcription program.

Note that the remaining short a's in this machine transcription are pronounced as a rounded vowel, intermediate in length between the vowels in standard (British) English "ball" and "pot".  In certain cases, it is rounded further and sounds like the o in English "rose" (without the diphthong and having a somewhat shorter duration). The long ā (which has a bar on top in this transcription) is pronounced like the vowel in standard (British or U.S.)  English "far", but with less duration.

Although the traditional Bengali spelling (and so also the machine transcription) makes distinctions between short and long versions of the vowels i and u, these distinctions are no longer audible in standard spoken Bengali.  Hindi-Urdu and most other Indic (Indo-Aryan) languages do preserve these distinctions of vowel-length (duration), some of which go back at least to the Sanskrit, if not earlier.

With the above reservations in mind for the short a and for the loss of distinction between long and short forms of i and u, the letters ā, e, i, o and u represent, in this transcription, the same vowel sounds that they do in standard Italian and Spanish.  The letters e and o are usually written, in this transcription, as their long forms, ē and ō.  Although their lengths would sound closer to long than short to an English ear, Bengali, like most Indic languages (but unlike Dravidian ones) does not distinguish between long and short forms of these two vowels.

There is also a vowel sound in Bengali that is the unrounded partner of the rounded open vowel represented by the short a.  This is like the vowel sounds in standard English "cat" and standard U.S. English "fast", being intermediate in length between the two.  However, as this vowel sound was absent in Sanskrit and might be a fairly recent development in Bengali, there is no letter in the traditional alphabet for it.

So this vowel is usually represented (inaccurately) either by an e or, for historical reasons having to do with changes in the pronunciation of Sanskrit words, by one other means involving an a or an ā followed by a special joined form of the ẏ. (See below for ẏ.)  So the machine transcription, following the traditional spelling, also does not indicate this sound properly.

(In my own Romanization scheme, I use e` to represent this sound, and o` to represent its rounded partner.)

Most of the consonant letters have the values that they most commonly have in English. But note that c has the sound represented by the (unaspirated) ch cluster of English "chum".

The letter h, when it follows a consonant, indicates aspiration--an added puff of air.

  

One should also note that, while the machine transcription displays all three forms (ś, ṣ and s) of the unvoiced sibilant consonant, all of these usually have the same sound in standard spoken Bengali, This is close to the sound of the English cluster sh, with the exceptions being when s precedes a dental t, th or n, or when s or ś precede the simple r.  In these cases, s and ś have the sound that s has in English "sell".  Examples of this can be heard in stiti, sthān, snān, srot and śri.

The circumflex forms of the dentals t, th, d, dh, n and of the basic r are indicated, in the machine transcription, by a dot below the letter: ṭ, ṭh, ḍ, ḍh, ṇ and ṛ.  However, in standard Bengali, these are all pronounced more by the tongue tip touching the upper gum ridge, as in English, than in the true circumflex way that prevails in much of the rest of the subcontinent. This is especially true in most of East Bengal, which is now Bangladesh.

This gives spoken Bengali (especially that of East Bengal) and Ahomiya, to some ears, a "softer" sound than their distant cousins to the west, such as Hindi, Marathi, Gujerati and Punjabi, and also their closer cousin, Oriya, all of which, like the Dravidian languages, make sharper distinctions between circumflex and dental stops, pronouncing the former very strongly.

The nasal is represented in the machine transcription, below, by m̐.  This symbol indicates that the preceding vowel should be nasalized.  In standard spoken Bengali, the nasalization is faint.

(In my own Romanization,  located above, between the English original and the translation in the traditional Bengali script, I have indicated nasalization with a tilde, ~, following the vowel to be nasalized.)

The n with a dot above (ṅ) usually stands for the ng sound in English "singer, song, lungs" (but at times, and almost always in the East Bengal variant of the standard pronunciation, for its sound in English "finger, anger").

For those not familiar with certain historical issues in Bengali spelling, one should point out that the Sanskrit y is pronounced, in Bengali, as is j, both having the sound of the first consonant in English "jam".  The Sanskrit w, which has migrated, in many Indic languages, into v, has changed, in Bengali and some other eastern Indic languages, into b. This w turned b is no longer pronounced when it follows a sibilant.  So śbās is pronounced as "shahsh" would be in English.

The y with a dot on top (ẏ) represents cases where the change to j has not taken place (usually between vowels) or is used with a vowel to indicate certain diphthongs.  In either of these situations, this ẏ is usually sounded as a short e (as in English "net").

There are a host of other things that could be discussed, including the "vowel harmony", especially evident in the central and western dialects of Bengali.  This can strongly alter the pronunciation of a vowel, because of the presence of a succeeding vowel (even when this second vowel has now vanished, due to contractions that have occurred in the past). This is only imperfectly represented in the spelling.  But I will stop here.