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This plot of land where I have built my house
It is not mine,
To someone else it belongs.
I don’t get the orders of the zamindar
In whose domain my house stands
Nor can I see him
Such is my lot
To whom shall I complain!
I don’t sow as he wants
And all year round I reap nothing.
I pay all my rents
Yet the land is put on auction
I try hard to please him
Yet I don’t get his call!
Transcreation of one of the most famous folk songs of Bengal – Parer jayga parer jamin ghar banayia ami roi/amito sei gharer malik noi – by Hason Raja (1854-1922), a rustic song writer and composer, whom Rabindranath made internationally famous by mentioning his simple philosophy in his Hibbert Lectures ‘The Religion of Man’ delivered in 1930 at Manchester College, Oxford.
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