Samiran Mandal

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Unveiling the Soul of Sundarbans Through Poetic Lens

Kobitar Chhele Sundarbans‌– A New Horizon Through the Eyes of Reader

The Sundarbans has been an inexhaustible source of inspiration in Bengali literature. We have received many timeless creations around this mysterious mangrove forest. In that vein, poet Samiran Mondal’s debut poetry collection, ‘কবিতার ছেলে সুন্দরবন’ (Kobitar Chhele Sundarbans), is an unparalleled and innovative addition. As a Sundarbans-loving reader, this book has brought a promise of new flavor to me.

In this book, poet Samiran Mondal has brought the Sundarbans out of the strict net of information, giving it a poetic and philosophical form. In the powerful style of modern poetry, he has woven together the culture, history, human struggles, biodiversity, and unexplored archaeology of the mangrove forest. The most commendable aspect is that despite poetic freedom, he has not sacrificed reality. Every word, every line stands on the ground of truth, which has given this book a distinct identity.

The naming of the book, ‘কবিতার ছেলে সুন্দরবন’ (Kobitar Chhele Sundarbans), is extremely deep and evocative. Just as Karna in the Mahabharata is known by his mother’s identity, the poet here also sees the Sundarbans as the child of poetry – finding its self-identity in the refuge of poetry. This idea is undoubtedly unique.

While paying homage to his predecessors, the new path the poet has shown is commendable. I believe that Samiran Mondal’s endeavor will not only win the hearts of general readers but also make established writers on the Sundarbans rethink.

From literature enthusiasts to all Sundarbans lovers, this book will become a priceless treasure. May a new era begin in the poetic practice of the mangrove forest with ‘কবিতার ছেলে সুন্দরবন’ (Kobitar Chhele Sundarbans), this is my wish.

Book: কবিতার ছেলে সুন্দরবন (Kobitar Chhele Sundarbans)
Poet: Samiran Mondal
Reviewed by:
Sufal Kar
91/B, Prafulla Nagar,
South Dumdum, Kolkata – 700074
Available at: Mayurpankhi Publications

A Captivating Journey into the Heart of the Mangroves

Book Review: ‘কবিতার ছেলে সুন্দরবন’ (Kobitar Chhele Sundarbans) – A Reader’s Account of Enchantment

Sundarbans is not just a jungle or rivers; Sundarbans is a living entity with its own language and philosophy. But how many truly recognize that soul? Poet Samiran Mondal, through his first poetry collection ‘কবিতার ছেলে সুন্দরবন’ (Kobitar Chhele Sundarbans), has unveiled that unknown form. As an ordinary reader, I am enchanted and overwhelmed after reading this book.

In this book, the poet has tried to capture the soul of the Sundarbans, freeing it from the shackles of information. In the powerful mirror of modern poetry, he has elevated the history, culture, biodiversity, and unspoken stories of the mangrove forest to another dimension. Most importantly, the poet has not resorted to any fantasy. Every poem, while standing on the ground of reality, gives birth to a deep philosophical realization that takes the reader into a new world of thought.

The name of the book, ‘কবিতার ছেলে সুন্দরবন’ (Kobitar Chhele Sundarbans), is highly symbolic and apt. Just as Karna is known by his maternal identity, the poet seems to suggest that it is in the refuge of poetry that the Sundarbans finds its true identity, becoming articulate. This idea has further deepened the poetic appeal of the book.

Samiran Mondal’s creation is a pioneer of a new path outside the conventional study of the Sundarbans. For those who want to hear the heartbeat of the mangrove forest, beyond mere travelogues or documentaries, and get acquainted with its soul, this book is a must-read. I am confident that this book will occupy a special place in Bengali literature.

Book: কবিতার ছেলে সুন্দরবন (Kobitar Chhele Sundarbans)
Poet: Samiran Mondal
Reviewed by:
Sanjoy Dutta
55/29, P. S. Road,
Dumdum, Kolkata – 700030
Available at: Mayurpankhi Publication

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15 responses to “Unveiling the Soul of Sundarbans Through Poetic Lens”

  4. קידושין

    The language “גופא”, the Gemara employs to indicate that discussion returns to Primary priority topic, as opposed to a secondary point of discussion.  Our Gemara jumps directly into the פרדס\י”ג מידות Oral Torah wisdom skill of shooting a bearing azimuth, to make a reference direction, typically true north. Commonly used in navigation, surveying, and mapping to describe the orientation of a line or path. The 8th middah of the Oral Torah revelation – אמת – interpreted to mean “Path”.  Halacha, as a significant defining term expressed throughout the Talmud likewise understood to mean “Path”.

    The study of Talmudic common, prioritizes the “journey” rather than the “destination”.   By stark and absolute contrast, the statute halachic codes made famous by the Yad, Tur, and Shulkan Aruch codes prioritize the “destination” over the “journey”; halacha takes on a meaning all its own.  Whereas halacha employed within the pages of the Sha’s, so to speak, has no legs of its own to walk.  The “משל” statute law halachic codes, they compare to a fiat based economy rather than a gold or silver commodity based economy.

    This גופא, represents a subtle shift which post the Rambam Civil War rabbinic authorities utterly fail to either acknowledge or recognize.  Our Gemara:
    דף יא.  גופא.  אמר רב יהודה אמר רב אסי כל כסף האמור בתורה  צורי ושל דבריהם כסף מדינה  
    The term צורי (tzuri) in this context, denotes gold or silver.  The Mishnaic economy during this time period of Roman occupation, an agricultural commodity based currency.  Post Nixon, by contrast, the US currency became a fiat based “war time” economy. Governments commonly turn to fiat “monopoly money” currency to pay a ballooning national debt, especially during some “war time” (לאו דוקא) economic crisis.  

    Lincoln switched to the greenback to pay for the Civil War.  This critical precedent later Wilson used as a spring board to restore the 3rd National central bank “Federal Reserve”.  The latter institution inserted the US into both European Civil Wars commonly referred to as WWI & WWII.  The bureaucratic Federal Reserve has no accountability to the American People.  It compares to the US Intelligence Agencies: FBI, CIA, NSA during the first Trump Administration. 

    This 1913 newly established “National Bank”, unilaterally made huge loans to England and France to finance their war against the German “Huns”.  In 1915 the German sinking of the Lusitania aroused public indignation across America.  But Wilson primarily based his decision to join the Allied alliance based upon the exorbitant loans which the Federal Reserve unilaterally awarded to England and France.  Wilson abandoned the advice given by Washington, in his Farewell Address in 1796, not to make “entangling alliances” with Europe.

    Lusitania sinking in 1915, the consequence of unrestricted German submarine warfare, aroused the indignation of American public opinion.  But had America joined the Central Powers alliance in 1917 England and France most certainly would have invalidated their debt – Federal Reserve unilateral and not authorized by Congress – loans.

    This debt prompted England and France to impose the crushing terms which define the Versailles treaty. England and France demanded war reparations from defeated Germany.  Wilson’s National Bank thereafter issued loans to the post-war German government to pay the Allied victors imposed war reparations.  This bank duplicated the folly that post Civil War Congress initiated following the American Civil War.  Congress restricted the currency of the Greenback by one-third.  This decision restricted wealth into the “Robber Baron” monopoly class hands.  

    Post the fall of Wall Street, Wilson’s National Bank made the exact same error and severely restricted the flow of currency.  This error, the root cause of the Great Depression.  Consequent to the Great Depression, Wilson’s National Bank, refused to issue further loans to Germany.  This set off a catastrophic domino effect that witnessed the rise of Hitler’s Nazi Party which overthrew the Weimar Republic. Wilson’s National Bank made a fundamental shift in the cultures and customs practiced by the American people and Federal Governments. Like, for example, the British East India Company’s monopoly on tea, which resulted in the Boston Tea Party. 

    Once the Federal Government entered into the European fold of Central European economic “tradition” of Governments establishing Corporate monopolies, initiated likewise by the post Civil War ‘radical republicans’ in Congress, whose policies established the ‘Robber Baron’ monopoly class. This shift in “tradition” away from State intra-State trade autonomy, caused an American economic switch from Adam Smith’s lesafair economics to FDR’s John Maynard Keynes – Central Bank socialist economic central planning fiat currency. FDR made owning gold illegal.

    Have made a digression from the גופא of this common law commentary to the Talmud in an attempt to differentiate “tradition” between T’NaCH\Talmudic Court-based Judicial Common Law to “tradition” of the Yad, Tur, Shulkan Aruch statute halachic religious ritual legalism. This issue raises … who determines the culture and customs practiced by the chosen Cohen people; can our generation achieve Zionist self-determination and restore the Torah as the Written Constitution of our Republic of 12 Tribes in the Middle East; which includes the Talmud as the working model for our lateral common law Sanhedrin court Federal system; the Sanhedrin, mandated with the Constitutional power of Legislative Review over state and Federal government statute laws?

    גופא – דתני האיש מקדש משום דקא בעי למיתני כסף וכסף מנ”ל? (דברים כב) כי יקח איש אישה. וכתיב התם (בראשית כג) נתתי כסף השדה קח ממני. וקיחה איקרי קנין.

    Our Gemara now shoots an azimuth bearing. We have returned to our opening paragraph. Talmud directly weaves warp/weft threads to produce the “garments” of the Cohen priestly service within the Mishkan. This משל directly ties into the Book of שמות. What shapes and determines the Cohen “tradition” of practiced culture and custom – this the underlying study of the entire Talmud. Whereas statute law Judaism prioritizes religion, the Torah defines faith as צדק צדק תרדוף – judicial justice which strives to fairly compensate damages inflicted by Party A upon Party B.

    The building of Jewish families, the bedrock whereby the chosen Cohen people live from generation to generation. A man marries a woman with the core obligation to produce children and educate these children in the oath brit alliance cut by Avraham Yitzak and Yaacov. This tohor time-oriented Av commandment defines the essence of the Book of בראשית.

    Rabbinic Judaism changed the “tradition” of tohor time-oriented Av commandments to a subsidiary class of Torah commandments which require k’vanna. Some undefined term(s), understood as “concentration”; or for example, attention paid to the literal meaning of words printed in the Siddur. This error duplicates the avoda zara of both “daughter religions” vis-a-vis the revelation of the שם השם in the first Sinai commandment.

    Statute law directly compares to translating the Divine Spirit Name to Words. The difference between directly viewing a beautiful sun-set and a camera picture taken of that beautiful sun-set. Exceptionally difficult for words to express the subtle distinction between shades of the same colors. The obvious difference between a painted work of art vs. a print of that painted work of art.

    How much more so the Divine Spirit Name revelation at Sinai, expressed in the opening first commandment. Substituting word translations for Divine Spirits, like the 13 middot of the Horev revelation, herein defines the treif tumah Av tumah avoda zarah – the Sin of the Golden Calf – which defines the 2nd Sinai commandment, together and along with the precedent negative commandments which forbid 1. assimilation 2. intermarriage.

    Oral Torah פרדס logic employs positive and negative Torah commandments as בניני אבות-precedents to interpret the mussar k’vanna of Av tohor time-oriented primary Torah commandments, which create the עולם הבא of the chosen Cohen people יש מאין – תמיד מעשה בראשית. This latter phrase repeated twice within the opening blessing of tefillah דאורייתא ק”ש.

    Greek culture developed philosophy. Hebrew culture spins around the central axis of “Big Picture” ideas. The two cultures – day and night, oil and water — different. The ‘Golden Age’ of Spanish Jewry witnessed the Samaritan, Tzeddukim, Karaim assimilation avoda zarah of Jews wherein our rabbinic leaders functioned as the tip of the spear-head wherein they murdered the Judges of the Great Sanhedrin to worship the Golden Calf.

    Brit does not correctly translate as covenant. Brit correctly understood – as a sworn alliance. Its now Elul: the King is in the fields. T’shuva requires that Jews remember/יום הזכרון the oaths wherein the Avot did the tohor time oriented commandment which continually creates the chosen Cohen people יש מאין.

    The mitzva of קידושין serves as a בנין אב-precedent that interprets the k’vanna of the Av tohor time-oriented commandment – brit cut between the pieces. K’vanna requires prophetic mussar as its יסוד. This k’vanna separates the Priority Av tohor time-oriented commandments from the secondary positive & negative Torah & Talmudic mitzvot — which do not require k’vanna.

    Reading words from a book simply does not compare to the discipline of shooting בנין אב bearing azimuths. Consequently, translating T’NaCH or Talmud, worse than an utter waste of time. People read these “books”, but fail to study common law. Common law/Oral Torah – no book can write down or contain. Why? Because the study of common law depends upon comparing similar Case/Rule precedents. The sages “wrote” the Oral Torah into the T’NaCH and Talmud. But a scholar must make the precedent search – not the printed book. The Talmud only functions as a guide. You can lead a donkey to the trough, but you cannot make that ass drink.

    דכתיב (שם מט) השדה אשר קנה אברהם אי נמי (ירמיה לב) שדות בכסף יקנו — תני האשה נקנית.

    Our Gemara jumps through a lot of hoops of T’NaCH kabbalah. The ass reads and moves ahead to follow the Gemara train of thought. The donkey stops and weighs the prophetic mussar contained by these Aggadic sources derived from T’NaCH Primary Sources. From my experiences in Yeshiva, the vast majority of Yeshiva asses do not make a common law study of T’NaCH nor Talmud primary sources. At best, they rely upon g’lut commentaries written over a thousand years later.

    How utterly pathetic. Worse, the rabbis of these Yeshivot fail to demand that their students study common law. They too have fallen into the trap of assuming that the purpose of the Talmud – to shape and define religious halachic observance rather than training our youth to pursue righteous judicial justice within the borders of the oath-sworn brit lands of our Republic.

    The disgrace that rabbis fail to discern the Life-death/blessing-curse distinction which forever separates the Torah blessing of living as the chosen Cohen people in ארץ ישראל from the Torah curse of enduring the judicial oppression of Par’o and his court system which defines the entire history of Jewry in alien foreign lands which culminated with the Shoah. The Yeshiva rabbis compare to brown-nose boot-licker syphilitic-syphicants.

    They do not teach Yeshiva students how to study the Torah לשמה. They do not teach פרדס\י”ג מידות Oral Torah logic. They pervert the T’NaCH and Talmud into children’s bedtime stories. Their belief system of statute halachic religious law has taken Jews completely off the דרך. Hence, no different from the Wilderness generation, they refused to encourage a mass aliyah to the Palestine Mandate before the British slammed the door shut with their 2nd White Paper.

    Their moral cowardice provoked the Torah Shoah curse, just as the Wilderness Generation has no portion in the World to Come. Prophetic mussar, if easy to swallow, the generations of Israel would not have murdered the prophets. How many times did Israel seek the death of Moshe? Prophetic mussar has a bite worse than any other predator on the Planet Earth.

    To grow and mature the seeds of prophetic mussar within the Yatzir Ha’Tov within the heart defines the purpose of the revelation of the Torah, expressed through the wisdom of the NaCH, Talmud, Midrashim, and Siddur. Hence the translation of mussar as “rebuke” as brain-dead idiotic as to translate t’shuva, unilaterally determined as repentance! Treif translations suck. Just that simple. No fancy dance’n.

    Learning how to live as the time-oriented commandment created – Cohen people – requires more than simply a primary first grade education that instructs children how to read. T’NaCH & Talmud codified into books. To quote Snape of Harry Potter: “Obviously.” But the wisdom kabbalah of Oral Torah פרדס\י”ג מידות logic requires the patience and skill of making precedent bearing interpretations which translate Mishnaic living reality to Gemara contour maps, herein separates the pursuit of dynamic judicial justice from static dogma of religious halachic statute law.

    The study of Jewish common law requires independent research. Just that simple. No fancy dance’n. Worlds separate the donkey from the ass. The latter, clearly a pejorative metaphor comparable how Torah common law perceives the Xtian/Islamic counterfeit Protocols of the Elders of Zion religions – ‘by their fruits you shall know them’.  The Yad, Tur, and Aruch statute halachic codes follow the path trodden by these two gross counterfeit religions.

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  5. Congratulations on this beautiful and innovative creation! Your poetry is a testament to the soul of Sundarban, and this book is a truly unique addition to the literary world. We wish you continued success. ✨✍️

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