2009

A little too late for the new year... :P
But never mind...

Last 4th Jan, 2009, on a Sunday supplement of the most leading Bengali daily Anandabazar Patrika, the Rabibasariya, I found some absolutely moving articles written by the youth of Bengal following a competition organized by the daily on occasion of the new year. I like some so much that here I translate some of them.

“Yes, in 9 (i.e., 2009), I want to see Rahul Dravid retired. But who will bell the cat? Why, Dhoni?
And to all would-be-fathers, don’t wish so much for a boy-child! If you have a daughter, ok, you may have to take care of some little troubles when she is at the doorstep of her adolescence, when her loving heart starts to blossom by the magic-touch of a young lad! Just keep a strict eye on your letterbox and the inbox of your daughter’s cell. That’s it! In 9, let the males love their beloveds a little less! Let the far-away females like Paris Hilton and Jennifer Lopez get dozens of “boy-friends”, and not “lovers”. Let more and more Chandrayaan touch the soil of the moon, let them remove the stains on its surface and come back. After all, the moons do want to get rid of their stains, don’t they? Let my XXL-sized sighs of frustration reduce in 2009. Boss, let some worker bees like me at least get the cork beside that of the Queen bee’s!” (Written by Ushnish Goswami. Jalpaiguri)


“I am not Matangini Hazra. Neither am I Mother Teresa. Nor I am any political leader. I am a very ordinary girl. Engrossed in the everyday din and bustle of my busy working life, and under the tremendous work load, yes, I do not have the time to think about my country, my people. My day starts with the panic arising out of the exorbitant prices of articles in the market. After this, while traveling by the public bus, I am alarmed to think, what if the bus tumbles upside down? Will I be able to reach home safely? The tension in the workplace is ever-rising like a lofty mountain! In the middle of all this, there are grudges of my male colleagues beating into my ear-drums always, that they are ever deprived of boss’s favors because, and only because they are males! After finishing all work from office, when I start from there, quite often, the hour-hand surpasses 9. A lone female, so late at night? Several comments fly in from all around. Many men try to help (?) me by offering a lift. After safeguarding myself from such helping males, and reaching home also, peace of mind is not ensured! I have to start afresh the preparation for the survival in the next day’s rat race. In the middle of the night, I wake up, sweating, alarmed by some unknown fear!
When the year is ending, and I have sat to calculate what I have got and what I have lost, I find that in the middle of such woes, I haven’t slept peacefully for too long a time! Those days of waking up in the morning with the last trace of the sweet dreams of fantasy, have probably moved too far away!
So in the next year, I would want to have some sleep! And when I wake up, I want to have such a newspaper in my hands, which wouldn’t contain any news of terror attacks, fights over plots of lands, violence, crime, unrest and accidents. Where there wouldn’t be news of murders, rapes, or female foeticides! Where the snap of the blooded roadway wouldn’t catch your attention in the very first page! Where there would only be news of education, culture, art, sports and progress!” (Written by Debasmita Ghosh, Kolkata)

Two translations and a few words.... :P

A translation

You’re the one who my heart wishes for
Other than you, in my life, I have no one else, nothing else!

If you are unable to find happiness, go search for it
For, I have found you all over my heart, and I want nothing else.

I’ll remain immersed in my longing, waiting for you
I’ll reside within you
For prolonged days, nights, months and years!

If you love someone else, if you do not come back
I wish you get all you want, and let me be the one who begets all the pain.


Another translation

The windy breeze of the night has extinguished my lamp.
After slowly coming to me, oh my lover, please don’t depart from me again…..

When you go along this path amidst the darkness,
You will recognize the fragrance of the rajnigandha which have just shed beside the temple.
After slowly coming to me, oh my lover, please don’t depart from me again…..

When will you remember me, my lover?
Waiting for that moment, I remain awake in segments of the night, singing along.

I apprehend; what if I fall into slumber towards the end of the night?
What if my song perishes in my exhausted voice?
After slowly coming to me, oh my lover, please don’t depart from me again…..


Longing for the lover, waiting for his/her coming back or viraha seems to be quite a significant part of all great love stories. The above two songs of Tagore talks about love, and the sense of languishment in love so profoundly!
And quite predictably, a female embodies that sense of longing everywhere, rather than the male. As I had understood from my shallow knowledge derived from the word-of-mouth stories of Radha and Krishna, Shree Radha depicts that sense of longing for Krishna. Viraha (languishment for the lover) of course comes before Milan (Mating), and hence the duo is always pronounced as “Radha-Krishna” and not “Krishna-Radha”. Similarly, “Sita-Ram”, “Heer-Ranjha”, “Laila-Majnu”. The entire life of Meera-Bai was a longing, which was never to be quenched.
Of course, in some love stories, the male predominantly craves more for the female than the way the female does for the male. This may be the reason why Romeo comes first in his love story. Or take Devdas for the example of an obsessed lover. The love of Devdas for Paro has so much overshadowed the love on part of Paro!
I don’t know whether I will call someone like Devdas a famous lover or an infamous lover. For, most of my contemporary males laugh at him, or curse him for not being practical! Does there exist too much difference in the yearning of Devdas for Paro and that of Shree Radha for Krishna?
Females do seem more ridden with emotions, particularly so where the nostalgia of love is concerned. History also has given females more opportunities of longing than of mating. Great rulers and many brave men from history used to possess more than one wives. Of course, such great men did possess tremendous love for each one of them (it can be assumed), and each relation was a successful one, considering each to be unique and independent. But why is no female (or very very few females, to be on the safer side because of my shallow knowledge, again) in history cited to own more than one husbands? Are such females glorified at all by history? Or is it like “His” story, written by “him”, so “She” is not to be glorified anyways? (Ya, I admit, at times I do sound a feminist!)
Traits like viraha are portrayed to be a cowardly action on part of males. But interestingly, Shree Ramchandra, the great avatar of the Hindus and the ideal man of all times (Maryada Purushottam), was in fact, found immersed in viraha when Sita was abducted by Ravana. (Again, several interpretations of Ramayana exists, and I remind you all of the shallowness of my knowledge). Common sense tells me that he was a loving husband, and it was out of his love for Sita, and his deep pining for his wife, that Ramchandra took all the pains to go to a far off land and defeat the tyrant to bring his love back to him.
But there again exists some inexplicable vagueness about the climax of such great love stories. Krishna left for Mathura, and Sita was forced to go to Pataalpuri! Do these not seem idiosyncrasies on part of such great lovers? When the love for a woman came into conflict with establishing other great traits like courage or lawfulness or ruling people, great men chose the latter. Perhaps men don’t know how to persist with the profoundness of love for a woman for the entire life, while women are left with no other option but to symbolize only a nostalgic yearning!
But there is no doubt about the fact that at some point of time, all people in love feel this sense of desirous longing for the company of their lovers! The not-so-normal states of minds of so many people in viraha have given birth to so many great poems, songs, prose, paintings and God knows how many different art forms! Call all of them lunatics, call them absent-minded, call them crazy! Yet they personalize some of the strongest emotions that are so unique to the limbic of the humans! They are the people in love!
Reasonings like other wives of Krishna are but the manifestations or expansions of the first lover Radha, are something I am not yet able to physically imagine or appreciate at this stage. But with what has happened with me personally till now, all I can say is that,
Viraha cannot be ignored, and so can’t be the indelible imprint of Radha as a sign of deep love over the hearts of millions, across all the barriers of time and space.