On the banks of the gentle Phuleswari river, nestled like a picture postcard, was the village of Patpari. In this village lived a young girl named Chandravati. Near her home was a pond surrounded by a flower garden, vibrant with the colors of hibiscus, jasmine, and champak flowers. Every day, a graceful young girl and a handsome young man would come to the pond’s edge to pick flowers.
One day, the girl, Chandravati, finally spoke to the boy. “Who are you?” she asked. “You’re not from our village, yet you come here every day, breaking branches and taking all the flowers.”
The young man, whose name was Jaychandra, replied with a gentle smile, “I’m not from your village, but I am not a stranger either. Your village and mine are simply on opposite banks of this same river.”
After that, they often picked flowers together in comfortable silence. Chandravati’s basket would fill with red hibiscus, marigolds, and jasmine. Soon, their quiet friendship deepened. When Chandravati couldn’t reach the higher branches, Jaychandra would gently bend them for her so she could easily pluck the blossoms.
One afternoon, Chandravati wove a delicate garland of flowers and placed it around Jaychandra’s neck. From that day on, she made it a daily ritual to gift him a freshly woven garland of Malati flowers. The flowers she gathered were precious, as her father, Bansidas, used them every day for his worship of the god Shiva.
Their unspoken bond grew until one day, Jaychandra, with his eyes full of tears, wrote a short letter to Chandravati on a flower petal. He confessed his deepest feelings: “I am mesmerized by your beauty. I only come to this garden to be with you; when you leave, this beautiful garden turns dark in my eyes.”. He continued, “You don’t know that I spend my whole day crying, holding the garland you made for me. I have no parents; I live with my uncle. If you can give me a kind reply, I will stay in this region. If not, I will bid you farewell forever and go to a distant land.”
The next morning, the early sunbeams danced across the village. Chandravati woke a little late and hurried to the garden. She quickly picked hibiscus and other flowers for her father’s morning prayers. Just as she finished weaving a garland of malati flowers, Jaychandra appeared and handed her the letter he had written on a leaf.
“Chandravati, wait a moment, I have something to say,” he began.
But she cut him short, flustered. “I’m late today! My father’s prayers will be delayed. I must go home now.” With those words, she quickly tied the letter into a corner of her sari and rushed away.
After preparing everything for the worship, Chandravati left her father, Bansidas, to his prayers. Bansidas sat before the deity, his mind focused. His greatest worry was for his daughter. “I am a helpless, poor Brahmin,” he prayed silently, offering the first flower. “How will I ever arrange my daughter’s marriage? Oh Lord Shiva, bless my daughter. Let a matchmaker come with a proposal for a good groom today.” With the second offering, he prayed, “Let her groom be as powerful as a king.”And with the third, “Our family has a noble lineage. Let the groom be worthy of it.” Finally, he bowed his head to the ground, praying, “Oh, greatest of gods, let my daughter be married into a good home with a good husband.”
Meanwhile, in her own room, Chandravati finally untied the corner of her sari and opened Jaychandra’s letter. As she read his words, tears streamed down her face. “We have played together since we were children,” she thought to herself. “I loved seeing you, and I was happy. Why did you have to write a letter like this? I feel so ashamed, I cannot even begin to describe it.”
Hiding her true, overwhelming feelings, she carefully wrote a short, two-line reply. It said only: “My father is in my home, what do I know? How can a helpless woman give a reply?”
But in the privacy of her heart, she clasped her hands and prayed to her own deity, the great god Mahadev. “Please, make Jaychandra my husband,” she whispered, with the sun and moon as her witnesses. “I will place my wedding garland on no one else’s neck. Please, bless me and let my heart’s wish come true.”
Despite this deep desire, Jaychandra’s letter filled her with a profound sense of shyness. She could no longer bring herself to go to the garden by the pond, her feet feeling heavy, afraid she might accidentally see him. So, she stopped going there altogether. For her father’s prayers, she began to use the flowers that grew in her own family’s courtyard—the Nagkesar, Champak, and the bright red hibiscus from the bush behind the house. She no longer saw Jaychandra, but his image was permanently etched in her mind’s eye.
One day, a matchmaker arrived at Bansidas’s house with a marriage proposal. “Your family’s name is as bright as the moon,” the matchmaker said, flattering him. “And your daughter is virtuous, beautiful, and of a marriageable age. Give me permission to arrange her wedding.”
“You must have a groom in mind,” Bansidas replied. “Tell me who he is.”
“You are correct, I do have a proposal,” the matchmaker said. “I have come to propose a match with Jaychandra Chakravarty, from the village of Sundara across the river. His family lineage is high and will match yours perfectly. Your daughter is beautiful, and he is as handsome as the god Kartik. Furthermore, he is a great scholar of the scriptures. Your daughter will be very happy with him.” Bansidas consulted their horoscopes and was overjoyed to find it was a “Raj Jotak”— a perfect, kingly match rarely seen. With no hesitation left, the wedding day was finalized.
Joyous wedding preparations began. The air filled with the scent of mango blossoms as the spring season began. Rituals were started, beginning with the worship of gods, especially Lord Shankar. The house buzzed with activity as women prepared ceremonial items, and the sounds of conch shells and festive ululation echoed through the village. The entire home was filled with the happy clamor of celebration.
But just as the festivities reached their peak, a devastating rumor swept through the crowd, silencing the joyous noise. The wedding songs turned into heart-wrenching cries. People ran about in confusion, asking, “What happened? What happened?”
The news was unthinkable, a blow as sudden and final as a lightning bolt striking the top of a temple. Jaychandra, the handsome, scholarly groom, had converted to Islam to marry a Muslim woman he had fallen for. The revered Bansidas collapsed onto the ground, clutching his head in utter despair.
Chandravati’s companions gathered around her, wailing and cursing fate, lamenting the future of such a beautiful girl. But amidst the chaos and tears, Chandravati was completely still, silent as a stone statue. She did not cry, she did not speak; she hid the storm of her agony deep within her heart, letting no one see as she burned in silent sorrow.
For four days, she sat down for meals but did not eat a single grain of rice. At night, when she lay on her bed, her unshed tears would finally overflow, soaking her pillow. Memories of her childhood—picking flowers with Jaychandra, swimming in the Phuleswari river—stung her like a scorpion’s bite. If she drifted off to sleep, she would only dream of his smiling face.
Her father, Bansidas, understood the silent pain his daughter was hiding from everyone else. Soon, new marriage proposals began to arrive from many places, as many were eager to marry a girl as virtuous and beautiful as Chandravati.
But when her father approached her with these proposals, Chandravati spoke for the first time about her future. “Father, please listen to my words,” she said firmly. “I will never marry in this life. I wish to remain unwed. Please, grant me permission to spend my days worshipping Lord Shiva.” She chose to dedicate herself to the ascetic god, the one who is detached from worldly happiness, hoping to find a path beyond her own pain.
Bansidas, a wise and deeply religious man, did not force his daughter. He gave her his blessing and said, “Worship Shiva, and write the Ramayana.”
Honoring her father’s words, Chandravati devoted herself entirely to a life of worship. A temple to Shiva was built for her on the banks of the Phuleswari river. She was resolute in her decision to remain a maiden for life, dedicated to her prayers. The smile never returned to her face; she was like a malati flower that had bloomed in the evening only to wither before the night was over.
One day, while Chandravati was absorbed in her life of ascetic devotion, a letter arrived. It was from Jaychandra. The woman for whom he had given up his faith and his home had betrayed him. Consumed by regret, he poured his heart out in the letter to Chandravati. “Oh, Chandra of my soul,” he wrote, “the fire of regret has turned my body to ash. Thinking it was sweet nectar, I drank poison. Thinking it was a garland of flowers, I wore a venomous snake around my neck, and now I have invited death upon myself.”
He continued, filled with desperation, “I have no right to ask for forgiveness. But I have one last wish in this life—to see your face one final time. I won’t touch you, I won’t come near you, I will only look from a distance. You were my childhood companion, the garland of my youth. My heart is desperate to see you. Please, let me see your moon-like face for a moment before I die. I beg you, allow me this one farewell for this lifetime.”
Reading the letter, the calm composure Chandravati had fought so hard to build shattered completely. Tears streamed from her eyes as she read the letter again and again. Sobbing, she took it to her father. “Jaychandra wants to see me before he dies,” she cried. “You know the pain in my heart. What should I do?”
Bansidas, knowing how fragile the human heart is, feared that seeing Jaychandra would destroy his daughter’s hard-won peace. He spoke to her with a stern voice, his words sharp but meant to protect her. “You must continue the work to which you have dedicated your life and soul. Do not give any space in your mind to the person who has destroyed all your hopes.”
Chandravati understood her father’s command. She sent a reply to Jaychandra telling him not to come. Then, taking flowers and sacred leaves, she entered her Shiva temple and bolted the door from the inside.
Inside, she sat in a meditative pose, closing her eyes and turning her senses inward. She cleared her mind of everything—her childhood, her sorrow, even the memory of Jaychandra—focusing solely on her devotion to Shiva. She fell into a deep trance, losing all awareness of the outside world.
At that very moment, Jaychandra, frantic and desperate, ran to the temple on the riverbank. He banged on the locked door, his voice hoarse. “Open the door, Chandravati! Let me see you!” he cried out. “I won’t touch you, I won’t come near, just grant me a sign for this one last time in my life!”
But Chandravati, deep in her meditation, heard nothing. No one answered. The door remained closed. Heartbroken and defeated, Jaychandra looked around and saw a bush of red evening primrose flowers blooming nearby. He gathered a handful, crushed them to extract the blood-red juice, and used it to write a final message on the temple door. “You were my companion in childhood, my love in youth,” he wrote. “Forgive my transgressions, Chandravati. This sinner asks for your farewell for this lifetime.”
A long time later, Chandravati’s meditation ended. When she opened the temple door, her eyes fell upon Jaychandra’s writing. Wiping away a tear, she picked up a water pot and walked toward the river. The shore was deserted. There, she saw it—floating gently on the waves, was the lifeless body of Jaychandra. His face was as beautiful as the full moon, his eyes open but unseeing, his lips silent. Standing alone on the riverbank, the grief-stricken maiden just watched.
Epilogue: The original poet ends the story at this heartbreaking moment. But it is known that Chandravati did not live for long after that day. The Ramayana she had started writing at her father’s request was left unfinished. The last beautiful flower on the bank of the Phuleswari river had withered before its time.
Chandravati was a real historical figure who lived in the 17th century. She is considered the most eminent of the early female poets in Bengali literature. Along with her father, Bansidas, she co-authored a famous poem called ‘Manasamangal’. Her unfinished Ramayana is considered a literary treasure, and a portion of it was published by Calcutta University. Her life story, a tragic tale of love, heartbreak, and spiritual devotion, has been immortalized in this folk ballad, which is still sung in the villages of Mymensingh.