“Read Tagore, listen to his compositions, for someday you’ll know that he has a song for every emotion.”; Maa would often say, an eleven year old would rather prefer going out to fly kites, at 32, the man now realises every bit of what she said were true. Maa, she is still the Tagore devotee that she were, her son seems to have driven home the lesson too.
Certain songs hit you, hit you differently; they not only take you back in time and smother nostalgia all over, and as the feeling takes over you, you realise there’s something about the past that is still alluring. And, I’d rather choose to be there, hungover by all that could have been, all that it were and used to be: innocent, unadulterated and untouched by worldly desires of give and take. The subconscious mind does it’s job of holding firm, not letting the idle mind to drift, and as it recollects, recounts and takes a deep dive, the mind realises drowning in the rivulet of the past can often lead to the rediscovery of emotions which had been missing lately.
A few lines which were once hummed by someone has now hit the very core of my senses, taking over and pulling me towards this enormous void which can never be filled or fulfilled again, not in this life. Tagore would have known better, he would have known and understood what the heart pines for, but could never have, never claim to be it’s own. The three worlds could coincide, yet the trace of that one being who at some point were the heavens I looked upon, and the netherworld I wouldn’t have minded to go looking for, would disappear.
That’s the magic of being hit by something for the first time, it stays; and when it is as delicate as the feelings of an eleven year old, it manifests into an undying heartache of a thirty two year old man. An unanswered question at times, a million word answer often: none but the same, manifestation of that last glance, and of all that now is reminiscent of someone’s presence.
The heavens, and the netherworld and the realm that hangs in between echoes the same tune which I had once heard someone humming, and it’ll continue to resonate until the day I get to meet her on the other side.
আমার সুর গুলি পায় চরণ,
আমি পাই নে তোমারে।
P.S: Ending lines from one of Tagore’s finest compositions: দাঁড়িয়ে আছ তুমি আমার
গানের ওপারে।
abhishek purkayastha 