The song of distant meadows !!

In my sparkling youth, on a delightful day of the college picnic, an ever-smiling teacher said to me "In your stubborn state, you don't seem to allow your eyes to get wet; aren’t you, really?" I don't remember what I said that day. However, when I think back to that old time today, I feel like I would have tears in my eyes if I heard the song on those early days; and, mto ne very candid, even today, my eyes get wet often when I listen to that song.

A decade before I was born, a song was written by Shri Salil Chowdhury, and, with the immaculate rendition of the song by Shrimati Utpala Sen, it had been immortalized in hearts of music lovers. When I heard the song as a child, my heart would feel a pain. Although, it was not age to understand its contents and spirit, but it qould leave a deep imprint of agony in my heart. When I grew up, with countless loss and defeat in life, the melody of the wailing soul and the words signifying such, lead to let open the mind as a strange confluence of a pure urge emerging out from within the pain. It does not speak about the worldly desires and hardships of life, not the stale balance sheet of victory and defeat; it is the source of great human truth. This pain is blended with the decayed vibration of a fainting humanity. Even today, when I listen to the song, I feel the same. I am involuntarily torn into pieces by the rhythmic world of childhood dreams. What a spotless stream of pain in the heart, what a wonderful image of peace in the all-lost sky; This infinite expanse is the inexhaustible dream of life in the core and the selfless sacrifice of memories that weave panels around it. 

Such simple expression is possible only in the mother tongue. Yet, I dream about many more to read it, feel the flow of his poetry, the beauty of the other world of his thoughts. So I attempt its transliteration to the best of my ability.

Oh! The songs of those distant meadows!

The ballads of wild pastures!

When in a pensive corner of the day 

Do they fade into a smudged horizon?

How do they set the sky aflame?

How do dreams of those moist days

Let my unharvested soul weep in silence?     

In wantonly flow of southern breeze

What leafless words do I listen to?

In calm presence of mind 

I feel loosing these tunes

In unspoken tale of someone’s pain

As if rustling leaves swirl and cry

In sweeping wind of an autumn dusk

Closing my tired wings

I seek for a nest to rest

I crave for the bank 

In endless expanse of a fierce stream

Hours go in futile dreams

Sailing thoughts to drift and far

And, my soul finds solace in 

Trifling means of an endless journey 

I haven’t aspired anything more

But to string sweet melodies for

To pour in the urn of this world

In lonely corner of my room.

Yet, delusions of such dreams

Lay waste to the feeble nest

And, are swept away 

By a dark tempest; forever. 

The original song in Bengali is also given below :--

প্রান্তরের ও গান আমার

মেঠো সুরের গান আমার

হারিয়ে গেল কোন বেলায়

আকাশে আগুন জ্বালায়

মেঘলা দিনের স্বপন আমার

ফসলবিহীন মন কাঁদায় 

মাঝে মাঝে উদাস হাওয়ায় 

এলোমেলো কী যে শুনি

বুঝি কাহার ব্যথার ছোঁয়ায় 

হারায় আমার সুরের ধ্বনি

ঝড়ের হাওয়ায় পাতার মতন 

ঝরিয়া যায় যায় যায় যায়

ক্লান্ত ডানায় নীড় খুঁজি

অথৈ নদীর তীর খুঁজি

শুধুই আমার যায় বেলা

ভাসায়ে আশার ভেলা

অন্তবিহীন পথের পুঁজি 

অন্তরেরই সান্ত্বনায়

আমি তো চাহি নি কিছুই 

শুধু আপন নীড়ের ছায়ায়

আপন বীণার সুরে ভুবন 

ভরে দিতে প্রেমের মায়ায়

প্রেমের মায়ায় ভাঙিল সে ঘর 

ঝড়ের বায় হায় হায় হায়

Emon dine taare bola jay (এমন দিনে তারে বলা যায়)

 Incessant rain has been there today since the dawn. This brings a lot delight.

The passage of the seasons has a close connection with the human mind. I did not notice if it follow any particular trend or not. Like many others, monsoon is my favorite season. But, the second season on my list of favorites is summer. In this tropical country, people with such eccentric preferences are not to be found very often. Still, that's truly my preference. Passing through autumn and spring, my last favorite season is winter. Look, how strange is my choice. Leave aside these futile discussions. Let me share uou, which I so earnestly wish to tell. want to say.

Monsoon is truly my favorite season. To be honest, rain is always delightful to me. I love eben raining in other seasons also. However, my obsession with monsoon, the way it binds my mind, my heart, is a refined feeling.

The abundance of sky, quiet flowing of gentle breeze, each piece of nature today is welcoming those dense husky clouds. Sometimes its voice is a sharp cry, sometimes its tune carries a the swings of dirge. Raindrops set musical tone upon the leaves.   No rush is here, none has any haste; it has inspired me to pause and quietly gaze on. Those clouds have not brought any letter today. Today let them sing only. From a corner to another, let them cut through the breast of the sky, and in their procession, let them make the surroundings cry with their music of pain.   What do they talk about, what is their pain; how have they accumulated so much of tears? Whom they sacrifice all these pains before?

So many secrets inside me are seeking release today. They want to sit in front of the door of the soul even once. As if I shall not have no more secrets in me today. I will no longer be away from my inner self. Everything that exists today is ours only.   Emotions drench those newly born branches and embrace them firmly. Only you and I are alone in this darkness; holding hand in hand, sitting face to face, we float through the endless time in utter silence. Only to glrify the confluence of our muted pain.

Gurudev's song “Emon dine taare bola jay” hums on in my empty head…long time back, I translated it in English. Will you like to read?

Veiled in a yasmak of tempestuous streak of raining, 

Such is the day,

When I feel ease to confide her;

Such is the moment,

Saturated in thunderous roar of foaming nimbus,

That spreads a blanket of darkness over the sky, 

When I can let my soul lay bare before her.

Amidst gentle silence pervading all over

None can eavesdrop on our whispering exchanges;

Only two of us, facing each other,

Engrossed in deep agony,

Shall witness endless raining alone,

As if the world is left with none else around

Futile are the embraces of those worldly bonds

Futile are the dins of the day

It is only for eyes to feel the bliss

In sipping nectar of beholding eyes 

And, souls to caress and feel each other,

While the rest evaporates into utter darkness.

Whom would it harm,

If I can shed bits of my pain?

Confined to a corner of the room amidst deep shower,

If I can convey me to her,; 

How does it concern anyone else?

In presence of overflowing stream of rain

And, occasional sparkles of lightening

It seems that those emotions,

Which have so long been lying

Secreted within the soul

Can be shared just in these moments,

Along such tempestuous streak of raining.

The original song of Tagore in Bengali:--

  

এমন দিনে তারে বলা যায়,

এমন ঘনঘোর বরিষায়।

এমন দিনে মন খোলা যায়

এমন মেঘস্বরে  বাদল-ঝরঝরে

তপনহীন ঘন তমসায়॥

সে কথা শুনিবে না কেহ আর,

নিভৃত নির্জন চারি ধার।

দুজনে মুখোমুখি  গভীর দুখে দুখি,

আকাশে জল ঝরে অনিবার

জগতে কেহ যেন নাহি আর॥

সমাজ সংসার মিছে সব,

মিছে এ জীবনের কলরব।

কেবল আঁখি দিয়ে   আঁখির সুধা পিয়ে

হৃদয় দিয়ে হৃদি অনুভব–

আঁধারে মিশে গেছে আর সব॥

তাহাতে এ জগতে ক্ষতি কার

নামাতে পারি যদি মনোভার।

শ্রাবণবরিষনে একদা গৃহকোণে

দু কথা বলি যদি কাছে তার

তাহাতে আসে যাবে কিবা কার॥

ব্যাকুল বেগে আজি বহে বায়,

বিজুলি থেকে থেকে চমকায়।

যে কথা এ জীবনে    

রহিয়া গেল মনে

সে কথা আজি যেন বলা যায়–

এমন ঘনঘোর বরিষায়॥

Life

 It stretches the day a little longer

Memories of the Heaven’s blue

Still not died, still not dried up;

The sky is dust of gold

Still alluring 

Floating in those vacant eyes

For a few moments left;

The life is a gem, 

Spoilt by a failed palmist,

The band of clouds

Over the wings of horizon 

Crimson—a stream of blood—

Through the darkness of Hell

Whispering tale of death-eaters;

A dream yet survives

To be there, to be there,

Carrying wounds, 

Scars on the path

On those weary feet;

Still a dream survives,

To be there, to be there,

Miles away the home is peace.

Patience !

 

The beginning is mysterious

The end fascinates

I see its flight

The projectile of life….

The own dreams, follies and a few deeds…

It lifts, soars high and touches the top

And descends….doesn’t fall…

A gradual descent…almost flat now

Like the pebble dancing upon

The smooth face of pool

Kissing and flying, both transient…

The end is beautiful..

Learning the best of it….

The silence of life

The silence is signature of patience

Drawing, designing, painting it

In the best for a final go.

Awakening....

 This is an attempt to translate a beautiful poem written in Bengali by my childhood friend and life partner, Lopamudra...

Candles walk in…arrayed in the darkness

Dumb, deadened, yet aflame in dull habit;

Defeat is not the fire, a social identity,

Yet, the faith is not a piece for all.

The nature is all set to be bankrupt,

Why still is such intense search for lies?

The debt has outgrown repaying strength of life.

In this yellow wilted ancient age,

Sins appear, one by one…candles in hand

Alike baby snakes; venom trickles down the wretched spine,

The mighty curled snake of revelation

Wakes up from a deep slumber in faint light of candles.

The Fall !

 I can hear the sacred hymns of life

In rustles of those fallen leaves

Curled into uneven memories 

I can hear the whispers of the Fall

Of the end…the end not so far

Faith

Have we crossed the path?

In the realm of my noon

Beside the placid pool

Shadowed in the embrace of trees

Where water spiders dream

In leisure of sleeping leaves

Did I meet you there?

Sailing in my slender boat

Through a silver stream 

Bathing in moonshine

Have I seen you alone beneath 

A lonely branch on the bank?

Was it you, in whiteness of black?

The gentle stroke of my oars

Echo the wailing of ripples

Following each other never to meet

Have I touched you ever

On the alluring shore

Between the fading footprints?

The waves kiss the sky

Wings of little gull scoop the mist

For wishes to creep into

Did I see you on the beach?

The path soaked in crimson blood

Believing in colours of love

The dust tells the tale of the last traveller

Who vanished behind the bend unknown

Did I lose into your shadow there?

The night is aging, so is time

So am I, are you too?

Amidst the brown leaves

Some wilted emotions die

Amidst rustles somewhere

Have I heard your footsteps?