Death's Grief by Rabindranath Tagore

Translated by Bhaswati Ghosh

Note: Recently, I lost a loved one to cancer. Though not born into our family, the person had become family for us, and the death only showed me how attached I had been, without ever realizing that when the person was around. As I grappled with this loss, almost unable to accept the reality of it, I turned to Tagore for some solace. The piece below, part of Tagore's autobiography, reflects how he himself felt the depth of grief following his sister-in-law's death, and how his heart finally found acceptance and even peace. Worked as a balm for me in these difficult moments.

That there could be any gap anywhere in life wasn’t known to me at that time; everything seemed tightly knit within laughter and tears. Nothing could be seen beyond that, hence I had received that as the ultimate truth. Suddenly, when death emerged out of nowhere and, within a moment, created a hole in the middle of this very manifest life, my mind was totally puzzled. All around me, trees, land, water, the sun, the moon, the stars, and the planets firmly continued to be as they were, yet that, which amid them was just as true as themselves—in fact, which, the body, this life, the heart had, through a thousand touches, known to be even truer than all these supernal entities—when that loved one dissolved like a dream within no time, it seemed to be an utter collapse of the self! How could I reconcile what remained with what was no more!

A darkness emerging from this pit attracted me all the while. I kept circling and returned to the same spot, looked at that same darkness and searched for something in place of what had been lost. Humans can never entirely believe in nothingness. Whatever isn’t there is untrue, and whatever is untrue isn’t there. That is why the effort to see within what can’t be seen and the search for acquiring that which can’t be had never stops. Just like a sapling, if bound inside a dark fencing, keeps growing upright on its toes in a desperate attempt to get past the darkness and raise its head in light, all my heart and soul, when suddenly fenced by a ‘not there’ by death, desperately kept trying to come out to the light of ‘is there’ within that boundary. There’s no greater misery than to realize that the path to cross that darkness isn’t visible within that darkness.

However, in the middle of this despairing grief, a breeze of happiness would flow in my heart every now and then, taking me by surprise. The sad fact that life is not absolutely and inertly definite lifted a load off my chest. I felt joyous thinking that we aren’t imprisoned within the stone walls of unmoving truth. That which I had held on to had to be let go of. When seen from the perspective of loss, this evoked pain, but when I saw it from the angle of freedom, I felt spacious peace. That day, I, for the first time realized like a strange truth, that this world’s enormous weight balances itself with the give-and-take of life and death and flows in every direction thus; that weight won’t crush anyone with suppression—no one would have to bear the tyranny of a sole master called life.

This apathy made nature’s beauty even more deeply exquisite for me. For some days, my blind attachment to life nearly disappeared—trees swaying against bright skies would rain a burst of delight down my tear-washed eyes. Death had brought about the distance necessary for viewing the world with completeness and beauty. Standing detached, I watched the world’s image on the vast backdrop of death and knew it to be beautiful.

For a while at that time, a carefree attitude took over my heart, which was also reflected in my outward actions. I found it laughable to conform to the society’s courtesies by considering them to be a great truth. All that wouldn’t touch me at all. For a few days, I was completely oblivious to who thought what of me. I would just drape a thick shawl over my dhoti and wear a pair of chappals to go to Thacker’s shop for buying books. My meals were also characterized by haphazardness. For some time, my bed, even during rains and winters, remained on the balcony of the second story; there, I could see the stars eye to eye and meet the light of the dawn without any delay.

Not that any of these was an austerity for practicing detachment. This was more like a holiday for me. When I found the cane-wielding teacher of this world to be a deception, I ventured to taste freedom by trespassing even small controls. If one fine morning one woke up and found out that the earth’s gravitational pull had lightened by half, why would one want to carefully tread the official path? One would, most definitely, wish to jump across the four-five storied houses on Harrison Road, and if, while enjoying the breeze in Maidan, one came across a monument, one wouldn’t even want to walk past it, but rather to leap over it. My condition was similar—the moment the pull of life loosened under my feet, I was eager to completely leave the beaten path.

On the terrace of our house, alone at night, I would run my fingers like a blind man all over the night, in hopes of seeing a flag atop any peak in the domain of death or a letter or even some symbol etched on its black stone gates. Then, the next morning when light filled my bedding on the balcony, I would open my eyes and find the covering of my heart clearing away; I would find that the expansive view of life appeared as dew-fresh new and marvelous to my eyes as the way in which the world’s rivers, mountains and forests dazzle with the lifting of a fog.

Photo courtesy: Forest Poetry

Pagol or Madman by Rabindranath Tagore

Translated by Bhaswati Ghosh

A small town in the west. At an end of the big street, five or six palm trees rise above the thatched roofs like a mute man's signs to the sky. Next to the derelict house, an ancient tamarind tree puffs up its dense, glistening foliage like clumps of green cloud. Young goats move about on the ground of this roof-less house. Behind them, the lushness of the forest range spreads across the horizon of the afternoon sky.

Today, rain has completely withdrawn its dark cloak off this town’s head.

I have a lot of important things to write—those remain unwritten. I know this would be a cause of regret in the future; let that be; I would have to accept that. One can never know or stay prepared for the moment when or the form in which wholeness emerges, but when it does, one can't welcome it empty-handed. At that moment, the one who discusses loss and gain must be a smart calculator and would do well in the world; but dear vacation of light in the midst of glum ashadh (1), in front of your momentary bright, cloud-less glimpse, I put to dust all my important activities—today, I won't make calculations about the future—I am sold off to the present.

One day follows another, none of them demands anything of me; the calculations don’t go wrong then, all work happens smoothly. In such times, life progresses by linking one day to the next, one task to another; everything is uniform. Suddenly, when a special day appears without informing, like a prince from across the seas; a day unlike any other, all the trail of the days past is lost in an instant—that day, it becomes difficult for routine work to proceed.

This day, though, is our big day—this day of irregularity, this day of ruining work. The day that comes and defeats our everyday is our day of joy. The other days are for the intelligent, the careful, and this one day is for giving ourselves completely up to madness.

Mad isn’t a hateful word to us. We worship Nimai (2) because of his craziness; Maheshwar (3) too is our lunatic god. The West is debating as to whether talent is only a form of developed craziness—but here, we don’t feel ashamed to accept this as true. Inspiration is, of course, craziness, it is an exception to the rule, it comes only to upset order—it emerges all of a sudden—like today’s haphazard day—and destroys all the work of working people—some curse it, some others go crazy, dancing and delighting with it.

Bholanath (4), who remains as the joyful one in our scriptures, is one such oddity among all deities. I see that mad lord amidst the flood of sunshine shining through this day’s washed blue sky. His tabour plays steadily within the heart of this thick afternoon. Today, death’s naked pure face stands still in the middle of this work-filled world—with beauty and peace.

Bholanath, I know you are strange. In every moment of life, you have appeared with your begging bag. And completely wrecked all calculations and measurements. I am familiar with your Nandi (5) and Bhringi (6). I can’t say that they haven’t given me a drop of your intoxicating beverage; these drops have inebriated me, everything has been upset—today nothing is in order for me.

I know that happiness is an everyday item, but bliss is beyond every day. Happiness remains constricted, fearing it may get dirty; bliss rolls over dust and shatters its separation with the universe; that is why to happiness, dust is inferior, but for bliss, dust is an ornament. Happiness is afraid of losing something; bliss is delighted to relinquish everything; for this reason, to happiness, emptiness is poverty, but to bliss, poverty is abundance. Happiness carefully protects its grace within the confines of order; bliss openly expresses its beauty in the freedom of destruction; this is why happiness is bound to outward rules, but bliss breaks those bounds to create its own rules. Happiness waits for nectar to arrive; bliss drinks the poison of sorrow with ease. For this reason, happiness is partial to only good, but for bliss, good and bad are no different.

There’s a madman in all of this creation who brings in everything that is inconceivable for no reason at all. He is the centrifugal force who is forever pulling the universe outside rules. The god of rule is always trying to put all the world’s paths into a neat orbit, and this madman overturns all this and twists it into a coil. At his whim, this madman creates bird in the clan of snakes and man in the family of apes. There’s a desperate attempt in the world to permanently protect all that has happened and all that is; he plunders all of that to carve paths for what is not yet there. His hands don’t hold a flute, harmony isn’t his tune; his pinak (7) rumbles, all orderly yagna (8) is ruined, and out of nowhere, something wonderful appears on the scene. Craziness and talent, both are his creations. The one whose string breaks at his pull goes mad, and the one whose string plays in an unheard melody becomes gifted. Mad people are outside the range of the ordinary, and so it is with talented people. The mad, however, remains on the fringe only, while the gifted take ordinary people into a new realm, thereby increasing their rights…


It is not as if this mad lord of ours appears only at certain moments; in creation, his madness is always at work; we only get a glimpse of it in certain moments. Death is forever making life new, bad is brightening good, and the inconceivable is giving value to the trifle. At the moment we get such a glimpse, the freedom within the form becomes evident to us.

Today, amid this cloudless light, I see that amazing face. That road across, that thatched-roof provisions store, that broken house, that narrow by-lane, those trees and vegetation—I used to see all these with the pettiness of everyday familiarity. That’s why these had confined me—had kept me in house arrest within these daily images. Today, all of a sudden, all the pettiness is gone. On this day I see that for so long I had been viewing the unknown as familiar; my seeing wasn’t clear at all. Today, I can’t finish looking at all these. Today, all of these things surround me, yet they don’t imprison me, they all make way for me. My madman was here only—that spectacular, unknown wonder, who did not ignore this thatched-roof provisions store—only, I didn’t have the light before my eyes with which to view him. What is amazing about today is that these nearby images have acquired for me the glory of a far-off place. The impenetrability of the snow-capped Himalayas and the impassability of the wave-ridden ocean express their fraternity with the madman.

In this way, one day we suddenly realise that the one with whom we had established a familial relationship remains outside our family. The one whom we had taken to be readily available in every moment is actually rare and hard to get. Those, around whom we had drawn a boundary thinking we knew them well, appear to have acquired a marvellous mystery by crossing all boundaries. The same one who, when viewed from the side of rules and balance, appeared rather small, quite regular, very familiar, when viewed from the side of breach, from the angle of that graveyard-roaming madman, turns me speechless—amazing! Who is that! The one whom I have always known is now this, who! The one who is part of the home on one side belongs to the heart on the other. The one who is important to work on the one hand is completely outside all necessities on the other. The same one whom I touch on the one hand is, on the other, beyond all grasp. The one who has managed to fit well with everyone is, at the same time, a total misfit, absorbed in self.

Today I saw the one whom I don’t see every day. In so doing, I gained freedom from every day. I thought I was bound by the everyday rules within the fence of familiarity surrounding me. Today I see, I have been forever playing on the lap of grand wonder. I thought that I had been making my daily calculations under the sharp gaze of a big officer in the office. Today, at the roaring laughter of the miscalculating madman—who is bigger than the big officer—reverberating through water, land, sky, air and the entire universe, I heave a sigh of relief. My workbook remains untouched. I lay down the pile of my important work at the feet of that capricious madman—let the blow of his Tandava (9) smash it into pieces and blow it off as dust.

1. Ashadh: A month of the Hindu calendar

2. Nimai: A prominent saint of medieval Bengal and the founder of Bengal Vaishnavism. Also known as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

3. Maheshwar: Another name for Shiva, a major Hindu deity. The god of destruction.

4. Bholanath: Alternative name for Shiva.

5. Nandi: Shiva's vehicle, a bull.

6. Bhringi: Originally a demon who was transformed by Shiva into a humble devotee and admitted into his force as a commander of his armies.

7. Pinak: Shiva's bow.

8. Yagna: A Hindu ritual, dating back to Vedic times, carried out to please gods. Oblations are poured into sacrificial fire, as everything that is offered into the fire is believed to reach the gods.

9. Tandava: In Hindu mythology, Shiva’s Tandava is a vigorous dance that is the source of the cycle of creation, preservation and dissolution.

End of Year by Rabindranath Tagore

Today as I reached the silent peacefulness of this place, away from the clamor of the capital’s human assembly, the sky was covered in evening’s glow. Cloud clusters had lent a soft hue to the green of the forest by placing shadows on it; had I stayed in the capital, I couldn’t have seen so clearly, this face of the year’s last day that I saw here. There, a covering of whirlwind encircles everything; that covering hides the united form of beginning and end in creation. The music of human life needs to pause for returning to the start again and again. But amid the cacophony of crowd one feels that taan* after taan carries on, there’s no returning to the first beat. There, man moves with the crowd’s push; that movement is devoid of rhythm…When evening descends on a city, it can’t reveal itself, the day’s noise barges in to choke its voice. Daytime’s labor looks for crude excitement in evening’s leisure.

Tired of body and mind, I had thought I wouldn’t get entry into the year’s last day today. Suddenly, thick clouds caressed the woods; the expansive bliss spread across the horizon didn’t appear as emptiness, but as beauty. I see this evening filled to the brim with the wholeness that rests within the endless stream of the world’s work. In meditation I realized, that which I know as the end in the outside world, hides the seeds of new life in this place.



In every moment I see that life’s entire prosody is contained within conclusion. Without pause, rhythm would lose its identity…In mankind’s history, several civilizations have vanished after a period of grandeur. The reason was that those civilizations had lost the pause; they only scattered their enterprise, didn’t care to pick up the same…So the rhythm broke. The first beat came back in the wrong place, and it wasn’t cessation; it was destruction.

It is my good fortune to have come here today. In the city from which I returned, the evening’s face is that of frenzy, not of well-being. There, death’s identity has lost its solemnity. Human habitations make every effort to deny death. That’s the reason one can’t see the truth of death in such places…

May the end show us that face of liberation, which contains wholeness. Calmly I say, “Dear End, within you resides the infinite. I see in your eyes a trace of tear on this last day of the year; separation, dejection, and weary melancholy eclipse dusk’s darkness. Despite that, assimilating and crossing over all those, I hear your voice within and without. Om. The heart’s pain has only lent it beauty—tears haven’t dulled it, but made it gentler. Every evening, death reveals its calm and graceful face across the immense star-draped sky. Embracing it, we lay down—relieved—all the day’s burdens.

At the end of the year, I see that same vast face resting on the untiring, imperishable throne of darkness. I pay my obeisance to it.”

* Taan is a virtuosic technique used in the performance of a vocal raga in Hindustani classical music. It involves the singing of very rapid melodic passages on the syllable "a." It is similar to the technique ahaat, used in Arabic music. [From Answers.com]

Translated by Bhaswati Ghosh

On a Cloudy Day by Rabindranath Tagore

Every day is filled with work and with people all around. Every day one gets the feeling that the day’s work and exchanges finish saying all that needed to be said at the end of the day. One doesn’t find the time to grasp that which remains unsaid within.

This morning, cluster upon cluster of cloud has covered the sky’s chest. Today, too, there’s work to do, and there are people around. But there’s a feeling that all that lies inside cannot be exhausted outside.

Man crossed seas, scaled mountains, dug holes under the ground to steal gems and riches, but transmitting one person’s innermost thoughts and feelings to another—this, man could never accomplish.


On this cloudy morning that caged thought of mine is desperately flapping its wings within me. The person inside says, “Where is that forever’s friend who will rob me of all my rain by exhausting my heart’s clouds?”

On this cloud-covered morning I hear the inside voice rattling the closed door’s fetters again and again. I wonder what should I do? Who is the one at whose call my words will cross work’s barrier to journey through the world with the lamp of song in my hands? Who is there whose one look would string all my strewn pain into a garland of joy, and would make them glow in one light? I can only give it to the one who begs it of me with the perfect note. At the bend of which road stands that ruinous beggar of mine?

My inside’s ache is wearing a saffron robe today. It wants to come outside, into the path which, like the innocent single string of an ektara, chimes within the steps of the ‘heart’s person.’

Translated by Bhaswati Ghosh

Rain's Letter by Rabindranath Tagore

Dear Friend,

Living as you do amid the desert of Sindh country, imagine the monsoons in Calcutta.

In this letter, I remind you of Bengal’s rain…Ponds swelling with water, mango orchards, wet crows, and ashadhe tales. And if you can recall Ganga’s bank, then think of the cloud’s shadow on the streaming water and of the Shiva temple located within the peepul tree under the cloud cover. Think of the veiled village women who fill water from the backside banks, getting drenched as they make their way home through the bamboo briars, passing paathhshalas and cowsheds; think of how the rain splashes in from a distance by placing its feet over the waving crop fields; first on the mango orchards at the end of the field, then on the bamboo backwoods; next, every single hut, every village fades out behind monsoon’s transparent cover, little girls sitting before huts clap and invite the rain with their songs—ultimately, the downpour captures all land, all forest, all village into its snare. Unceasing rain—in the mango fields, bamboo bushes, river; on the head of the boatman sitting crumpled as he flinches while wrapping his blanket. And in Calcutta rain falls at Ahiritola, Kansharipara, Teriti Market, Borobazaar, Shova Bazaar, Harikrishna’s Lane, Motikrishna’s Lane, Ramkrishna’s Lane, Zigzag Lane—on mansion roofs, shops, trams, the head of buggy coach drivers and so on.

These days it doesn’t rain heavily, like it used to in our childhood. Today’s rain has no grandeur of the past, it is as if the monsoon season is focusing on economy—it’s on its way out after sprinkling a little water—just some gluey mud, some drizzle, a bit of inconvenience. One can manage the entire rainy season with a torn umbrella and a pair of shoes from the China bazaar. I don’t see the revelry of the yesteryears thunder, lightning, rain, and breeze. Rains of the past had a song and dance, a rhythm and a beat—these days monsoon seems to be gripped by the jaws of ageing, by ideas of calculation and bookkeeping, by concerns of catching a cold. People say it’s only a sign of me growing old.

Perhaps it is that. Every age has a season; perhaps I am past that. In one’s youth it’s spring, in old age autumn, and in one’s childhood, rain. We don’t love the home as much as we do in our childhood. The monsoon season is for staying at home, imagining, listening to stories, playing with one’s siblings. In the darkness of the rain, far-fetched folklores assume a degree of truth. The screen of a thick downpour seems to put a cover on the world’s office activities. There are fewer wayfarers on the streets, fewer crowds, the usual busy-ness isn’t visible in places—the doors of houses are shut, coverings drape offices and shops…


…I remember, during rainy days I would run across our sprawling verandah—the door banged with the wind, the giant tamarind tree shook with all its darkness, the courtyard welled up with water up to one’s knees, water from four tin taps on the terrace gushed forth with a thud to join the courtyard water…Back then flowers bloomed on our keya tree beside the pond (the tree is no more). During the rains, when the steps on the pond’s bank vanished one by one, finally the water flooding in to the garden—when the clustering heads of the bel flower plant stayed upright above the water and the pond fish played around the water-logged trees in the garden, at that time, I raised my dhoti to the knee and imagined romping around the garden. In rainy days, when one remembered school what a gloom clasped one’s heart, and if Mastermoshai ever knew what one thought upon suddenly spotting his umbrella at the end of the lane from one’s verandah…I hear these days many students think of their teachers as friends and dance with delight at the thought of going to school. Perhaps this is a good sign. But it seems there are a growing number of boys who don’t love play, rain, home, and holidays—boys who don’t love anything in this wide world besides grammar and geographic descriptions. The sharp rays of civilization, intellect, and knowledge, it seems, is making the population of innocent children dwindle, replacing it with precocity.

Ashadhe tales = Improbable, fantastical stories

Translated by Bhaswati Ghosh

Photo courtesy: http://www.chitambo.com/clouds/cloudshtml/precipitation.html

Song of the Red Road

An unbound auburn road bears songs not washed away by the gust of time; songs the sage poet sang to extol the road’s hypnotic effect on the weary traveler’s mind. The road lives, the songs live, too. The road and its songs are one now.

That ruddy road down the village makes my heart stray.
Who does the hand reach out to, only to roll over the dust?

The road makes its own way, unrestricted and haphazard and comes to meet its friend, the giant banyan tree. She knows the sun likes to play behind it, splashing its gleam through the banyan’s curtains.

When I first met that banyan tree, its leaves were the green color of spring. The sky’s fugitive light would flash through its gaps and embrace earth’s shadows on the grass. After that ashadh’s rain came; like the clouds its leaves became somber. Today the pile of leaves is akin to the mature intelligence of the elderly, no outside light can pervade its gaps… This morning, she said to me, dangling her enormous emerald necklace, “Why are you sitting with all those bricks and stones on your head? Come all out in the open like me!”

After sharing her pleasure-pain tales with the banyan, the red road curves toward the shal forests. There, inebriated trees oscillate on the wayward wind’s notes.

This felt nice, this dance of light on leaves
The wild shalbon storm makes my heart quiver.
Haat commuters dart through the auburn road,
A little girl sits alone on the dust and spreads her toys
All this that I see before me strikes the cords of my heart’s veena.

The sun has stopped its play for the day. Dusk joins the red road as she makes her way to commune with her people—those who know the soil and the forests as dear friends. Santhal villagers greet the road with their earthy smile and rustic songs.

The Santhal girl comes and goes
through the pebble-strewn road by the Shimul tree.
A thick sari tightly wraps her dark, slim body.
One of god’s absent-minded artisans
must have lost his way while creating a black bird
and perusing ingredients from monsoon’s clouds and lightning
fashioned that woman.

Then night comes—with the glow of intermittent fireflies flickering through the invisible marshes along pale green ponds. The auburn road doesn’t stop. It continues to sing—all out in the open—where day and night, past and present, work and play are enmeshed with the One.

All of the above is a languid reminiscing of my journey to Shantiniketan in March.

Note: All quoted text written by Rabindranath Tagore, translated feebly by Bhaswati Ghosh.

First Sorrow by Rabindranath Tagore

The path by the shadow of the forest is now covered with grass.

On that deserted road, someone called me from behind.

"Don't you recognise me?"

I turned back to look at him.

"I remember you, but do not recall your name."

He said, "I am the sorrow who came to you when you were twenty-five."

The corner of his eyes revealed a spark of ray, just like moonlight on a lake.

I stood there, surprised.

"Back then, you appeared like a dark monsoon cloud. Now, you look like a golden idol. Have you lost the tears of that day?" I asked.

He didn't say anything, just smiled. I realized everything was contained in that smile.



The clouds of the rainy day had learned to smile like bright sunny days of the summer.

I asked him, "Have you preserved my youth of twenty-five?"

"Yes, I made it my necklace. Not even a single petal of the spring's garland had fallen."

I said, "See, how I have shriveled with age. But my youth is still adorning your neck, as fresh as ever."

He slowly put that necklace around my neck and said, "Do you remember, that day you had said, you don't need consolation, you only want sorrow?"

I shrugged a little. "Yes, I did. But it has been so long; I had forgotten about it."

"But the one within you hadn't forgotten. Now, you must accept me," he said.

I held his hand and said, "How wonderful you look!"

He smiled and said, "That which was once sorrow, is now peace."

Translated by Bhaswati Ghosh

Holiday Preparations by Rabindranath Tagore

Kaash Flowers

Puja holidays come near.

Sunshine is draped in the colour of Champa flower.

The air ripples with dew,

Shiuli's fragrance touches

like the delicate caress of someone's cool hands.

The sky is lazy with white clouds—

seeing which, the mind doesn't feel like working.

Mastermoshai continues to teach

the primitive story of coal.

Sitting on the bench, the boy paddles his feet,

sees images in his mind—

The cracked ghat of Kamal pond,

And the fruit laden custard apple tree of the Bhanjas.

And he sees in his mind's eyes, the zigzag path

that leads from the milkmen's neighbourhood

by the side of the haat,

into the tishi fields, next to the river.

In the economics class at college

the bespectacled, medal-winning student

jots down a list

which recent novel to buy

which shop will give in credit—

the sari with the "Do Remember" border,

shakha washed in gold,

a pair of red velvet chappals, handcrafted in Dilli

and a silk cloth-bound poetry book,

printed on antique paper—

can't remember its name yet.

At the three-storied house in Bhabanipur

a menagerie of shrill hoarse voices talk—

This time will it be Mount Abu or Madurai,

Dalhousie or Puri,

or that ever familiar Darjiling?

And I see, on the red path that leads to the station

five or six lambs tied with ropes,

their helpless cry spreads across

the calm autumn sky that lilts with the brushing kaash flowers.

How do they understand

their puja holidays are nearby?

Mastermoshai = Respectful term for teacher (Bengali)

Ghat = Bank

Haat = Weekly village market

Tishi = Linseed

Shakha = White bangle made of a particular stone. Is worn by married Bengali women.

Chappal = Footwear

Translated by: Bhaswati Ghosh

Rabindranath Tagore, Bengali Literature, Poetry

The Path to Walk on, by Rabindranath Tagore

This, indeed, is the path to walk on.

It has wound its way through the woods to the fields, through the fields to the riverbank, next to the banyan tree; then it courses its way through the villages. As it moves further, beside the lush fields, amid the shadows of the mango orchards, by the bank of the Padma River, I cannot tell in which village it would wind up.

So many people have passed by me on this path, some joining my company, others seen from afar; some with a veil over their heads, others without any; some walking to fetch water, others returning with water.

II

The day has retreated and darkness descends.

Once this path had seemed personal, intimately mine; now I see I carried a summon to walk on it just once, no more.

Past the lime trees, the pond, the riverbank, the cowsheds, the paddy mounds, the familiar glances, the known words, the acquainted circles, there won't be any returning to say "Hey there!"

This is the path to walk on, not one to return from.

This hazy evening, I turned back once and found the path to be an ode to many a forgotten footstep, all entwined in the notes of Bhairavi.

This path has summarized all the stories of all its travelers in a single dirt trail; the one track that traverses between sunrise and sunset, from one golden gate to another.

III

"Dear walking path, don't keep all the stories you have accumulated through the ages tied quietly into your dust strand. I am pressing my ears against your dust, whisper them to me."

The path remains silent, pointing its index finger toward the dark curtain of night.

"Dear walking path, where have the worries and desires of all the travelers gone?"

The mute path doesn't talk. It just lays down signals between sunrise and sunset.

"Dear walking path, the feet that embraced your bosom like a shower of wildflowers, are they nowhere today?"

Does the path know its end—where forgotten flowers and silent songs reach, where starlight illumines a Diwali of resplendent pain.

Translated by: Bhaswati Ghosh

Rabindranath Tagore, Bengali Literature

The Alleyway, by Rabindranath Tagore

One day, this concrete-laden alleyway of ours set out—twisting her way right and left again and again—to find something. But wherever she went, she would get stuck—a house on the right, a house on the left, a house right across.

From what little she could see by glancing above, a streak of sky revealed itself—just as narrow and as skewed as herself.

She asked the filtered slice of sky, “Tell me sister, of which city are you the blue alleyway?”

In the afternoon, she would spot the sun for just a little while and think, “I couldn’t understand any of that.”

Thick monsoon clouds cast shadows over the two rows of houses, as if someone has scratched out the light rays from the alleyway’s notebook with a pencil. Rain slides through the concrete, swooshing the snaky stream away with a snake charmer’s drum beats. The road becomes slippery, the umbrellas of pedestrians hit each other, and the water from an open drain suddenly splashes up to an umbrella, stunning its carrier.

Overwhelmed, the alleyway utters, “There wasn’t any problem when it was parched dry. Why this sudden pouring trouble?”

At the end of spring, the southern wind looks delinquent, raising swirls of dust and sweeping torn pieces of paper. The alleyway says, bewildered, “Which god’s drunken dance is this?”

She knows that all the garbage that gathers around her every day—fish scales, stove ash, vegetable peels, dead rats—are reality. She never thinks, “Why all this?”

Yet when the autumn sun slants itself on the balcony of a house, when the notes of Bhairavi float from the puja nahabat*, she feels for a second, “Perhaps something big really lies beyond this concrete track.”

The day yawns; the sunlight drops from the shoulders of the houses to rest in a corner of the alleyway, just like the slipping away of the corner of a housewife’s sari. The clock strikes nine; the maidservant walks by, tucking a basket of vegetables she bought from the market to her waist; the smell and smoke of cooking envelopes the alleyway; office goers get busy.

At this time the alleyway thinks again, “All the reality is only contained within this concrete road. What I had thought of as something big must be just a dream.”

* Music room or a tower from which live music is played/performed during festive occasions.

Translated by: Bhaswati Ghosh

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