A Tagore song that is very popular is about staying home when everyone else is partying. “Aaj jyotsna raate shobai gechhe bone...” it goes. I will try to translate parts of it,which will be crude and inadequate,but is unavoidable. “On this moonlit night, with spring intoxicating the air, everyone has gone to the forest. But I will not go. I will stay in the corner of my chamber, in this solitude.I will not go out, not with spring intoxicating the air.”
This song, sung beautifully by Kanika Bandyopadhyay, is soloved by Bengalis that recently I heard it played at a 50th wedding anniversary. The ultimate proof of the song’s popularity lies in it being played with abandon and complete disregard to its meaning or the immediate context. For me, the song has been very useful. It helps me convert the world’s rejection of me — felt too keenly and too frequently— into my rejection ofthe world. I am choosing to stay at home when everyone,including people my age, is doing hahahaha and TikTok dance moves and taking selfies.The song empowers me. I am making a statement. I am saying‘No’ to consumerism and lifestyle (even if I was not invited in the first place). I feel superior: I do not need the world. I am above partying,alcohol, or anything related to spring.
The most helpful bit of the song comes later. “With tender care, I have to wash and wipe this chamber of mine. I have to remain awake, for He may arrive unannounced, if He remembers me at all.” This was particularly useful during the lockdown, when we were all drowning in housework.As I would sweep and wipe my floor, in slow, circular, poignant motions, I would be profoundly motivated by these lines. What I was doing was for a purpose.It would probably lead to what I was waiting for my whole life.And in the process, what I was achieving was a deep cleansing,not only of the floor, but also of my soul. The broomstick would appear to move across the floor but actually would enter my innermost being and make my insides shine. That is the beauty of Tagore; he can be read in so many ways, literally and metaphorically,simultaneously. I fit were not so, I would feel such abjection just cleaning the floor,soaking the floor in Phenyl and wringing out the dirty water from the mop, every day, with my class-body resenting each movement, that I would have collapsed. The particular interpretation of the wiping and washing actions also helped my gender-body. It helped that I felt that when I was washing out the wiping cloth, I was wringing out all my spiritual dirt. Otherwise I would think about how many men were actually cleaning the floor and start frothing at the mouth. Women’s lives depend on such strategies.
The song would lead me to another action: deleting messages and emails on my phone and laptop, humming it, and feeling almost as cleansed. I would start with the mails from global IT giants like Amazon and Google, move on to lesser,often Indian, fashion chains or food delivery services, and after deleting them all, feel as if I had eradicated the effect of capitalism on my life, even if for a few minutes. For the mails would be back, pouring into my inbox.And I would be back cleaning soon. One has to be extremely vigilant. “I have to be awake,”goes the song. I cannot sleep. I cannot join the revelry in the forest. I have to be home, guarding myself against vile rubbish,emboldened by the thought that my work will bear fruit, my wait will not be in vain, though I have not been promised anything.That is hope, that is faith.That the One will appear on the horizon one day.
From early this week, I have been very disturbed. What have appeared on the horizon are four strange, ugly lions, their faces distorted with a viciousness that has replaced the grace and strength of the original national emblem, and their chest sizes look much-enhanced,probably measuring 56 inches.At such moments, everything that one has held sacred looks revised. I need to take another look at my song.
