Rabindranath Tagore and me

I have too many fond memories attached with this person and the immense treasure of poetry and songs he has left for us, Bengalis. My first memory of him was, I still remember, in my childhood, there was a photo of Rabindranath in his trademark gown, hands folded on his back, with beard in our drawing room. I still remember that pic clearly, even though 28 years have passed since. My mother used to sing marvelous rabindrasangit, a gift she could not pass to her daughters who were extremely eager to learn it, just because she was not a good teacher at all. But her voice is one of the best rabindrasangit voice I have ever heard. I still remember her singing “Chander haasir baandh bhengechhe…”

My childhood was spent in UP, mainly listening to hindi film songs, then I came in touch with Bengalis for the first time in Raisina, I used to return by school bus and one of our teachers had a marvelous voice, I still remember one day he sang the song “akash bhara surya tara” for his friends, and we all listened to his voice in pin drop silence. His voice still rings in my ears after 20 years.

Then I returned to west Bengal and my true romance with rabindrasangit started, I returned to west Bengal in 1985 and for the first five or six years I only listened to rabindrasangit, I was just obsessed with it, listening to the same song over and over again, drinking it with my ears. First it was debabrata and others, then slowly it shifted to suchitra, sagar sen, chinmoy and finally I selected two as my hot favourites shantideb ghosh and kanika, the rest came after these two in various steps.

Being a full blooded Bengali, full of emotion I often find my own reflection in rabindrasangit, so many of his songs speak out my words in a language which I could never portray. Like some one has taken the dream from my eyes and colours from my palette and made a beautiful portrait out of that. All my moods, all my hopes, dreams, desires were captured and portrayed by him.

When some one asks me which one is my favourite Rabindrasangit I am caught in a catch 22 situation. I simply say none, even the list of my favourites is very long, I just cant compare in between them. Like aguner parashmani, anandadhara bahichhe bhubane, krishnakali ami tarei boli, je rate mor duar guli, naha mata naha kanya, ami chitrangada, I just cant make up my mind about which one is best.

Its just like the various seasons of this earth, they all are beautiful and all are indispensable part of the entire show. So many times these songs has cheered me up, given me inner peace, filled up my heart with immense happiness, given me the courage to face the world.

There is nothing in the music world so complete, so fulfilling and so everlasting as the works of this one creator.

Books and their effects

I was born in a home which had minimum luxury in relation to clothe and food but we were blessed with a huge garden, couple of pets and a huge library, containing books of all sorts, starting from medical books to comics. My childhood was dream childhood for any child. My parents never stopped the easy flow of our life. Their only rule was we will have to finish our studies properly. The remaining time was our own.

My first reading started with comics strips and went on to all the books in the library excluding medical books. I realized in my teens that the proverb, books are a person’s best friend, is true to the core.

The fairy tales and adventure books taught me to dream, my childhood was filled with dreams of distant lands and planets and beautiful creatures.

The books like aranyak or tarzan series taught me how to love wildlife and nature, a love which still colours up my life, whenever I see a beautiful bird or tree I get a great pleasure out of that, a joy I have seen a lot of people are deprived of. The way nature was painted in aranyak was a feast for mind, I still can feel the beauty of deep forest portrayed by the author, have read the book for dozens of times and am yet eager to read again.

Books by Maupassant, somerset Maugham, saratchandra taught me human values, compassion, the priceless lesson that human beings are supposed to commit mistake, and most of them are forgivable, one should not expect human beings to be perfect. That is why they are human beings.

Poetry and songs by rabindranath taught me to console my broken heart, to draw a line to human heart’s ever yearning nature. It helped me to develop spiritually, to look for solace into God in times of darkest pain. It helped to control myself with dignity and peace of mind in big storms.

The authors like Bankimchandra can paint picture with their words, I have not read another author who has used Bengali so beautifully. His language is simply out of this world.

When I see today’s children engrossed in TV and computer I really feel sad, because these two mediums deprive them of one of the most beautiful human talents, the talent which only human beings possess, the power of imagination. The fantasy world which we used to create.