Dhusar Pandulipi

Dhusar Pandulipi or Dhusor Pandulipi (transl. Grey Manuscript) is a collection of poems by Jibanananda Das.^[1] The book was first published in 1936.^[2] This poem collection was the first successful attempt in Bengali language, that did not have Tagorian influence.^[3]

Dhusar Pandulipi

First Edition of Dhushar Pandulipi (Illustrated by Anil Krishna Bhattacharya and published from the D. M Library)
Author	Jibanananda Das
Language	Bengali
Genre	poetry
Publication date	1936
Publication place	India
Media type	print
Text	Dhusar Pandulipi at Wikisource

Publication

Jibanananda Das (left) first published several poems of the book in Kavita, a magazine edited by Buddhadeb Bosu (right)

The book was first published in 1936, however nearly all the poems of the book were published in different magazines by 1930.^[4][5] Bengali poet Buddhadeb Bosu was associated with poetry magazine Kallol, and also published and edited several notable poetry magazines such as Kavita, Pragati. Many of the post-Tagore literary personalities started their literary career with these poetry journals. Several poems of Jibanananda's Dhusar Pandulipi were first published in Bosu's Kavita magazine. Later Bosu established Kavita Bhavan, a publication and a hang-out for Bengali literary personalities. The first book published by Kavita Bhavan was Jibanananda's Dhusar Pandulipi. Das also dedicated this work to Buddhadeb Bosu.^[6]

Signet Edition of Dhushar Pandulipi (Illustrated by Satyajit Ray)

Das wrote a poem called "Campe" which was first published in Parichay magazine in 1932. Literary critic Sajanikanta Das accused Jibanananda of obscenity for this poem. However Jibanananda did not pay attention to the criticism and included the poem in the book Dhusar Pandulipi.^[5]

Reception

The book is considered as the first matured literary work of Jibanananda Das.^[3] Chidananda Dasgupta, in his book Makers Of Indian Literature Jibanananda Das, wrote some of the poems of this collection had a similarity with Rabindranath Tagore's poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga".^[7] Bengali poet and journalist Samar Sen wrote: ". . . poetic view of poetry will perhaps be irritated with the escape-formula worked out in the last poem of Dhusar Pandulipi, the dream cult and the rest of it.^[8]