The First Sorrow - Rabindranath Tagore

Happy Birthday, My Good Sir...

O Bearded One...

Your name I have heard from my early days.
But all I knew then was that,
You were this majestic looking man.
Your name was Rabindranath Tagore,
And yes - that you wrote poetry.
A line here, a stanza there -
I read as I dabbled in poetry, as I analysed them.
But understand you I could not,
Not for the life of me, I could.

But now - as I read your poems
Your message reaches me as voluntarily as breeze.
Leaving me soothed, refreshed, and pleasantly surprised.
I asked myself many times,
How could something so complex suddenly appear simple.
Just now, just as I started writing to you,
The answer came upon me.
Like the very breeze -
You have been sending to touch my face, of late.

I can almost hear you answer me -
In the breezy way you do in your poems.
Of why you had stood at a distance -
as I was reaching out to touch you.
True, my good sir,
How could I have known and understood you then,
When all I did was to analyse you.
Can divinity ever be analysed?
Can wisdom ever be studied?

How inappropriately ignorant I had been.

But you see, my dear sir,
It was not until recently that I started living poetry,
And that is why,
It was not until recently that I really understood you.
I know now sir,
That you only speak your breezy language,
To those who reach out to you from the heart,
To those who wish to feel you without any pretence.

And to those you will send -
Your breezy wisdom,
That you so beautifully crafted into lyrical masterpieces.

Happy Birthday, my good sir,
My loving wishes to you.

My Songs Taught Me Lessons and Showed Me Secret Paths...

Ever in my life have I sought thee
with my songs. It was they who led
me from door to door, and with them
have I felt about me, searching and
touching my world.

It was my songs that taught me all
the lessons I ever learnt; they showed
me secret paths, they brought before
my sight many a star on the horizon of
my heart.

They guided me all the day long to
the mysteries of the country of
pleasure and pain, and, at last, to
what palace gate have they brought
me in the evening at the end of my
journey ?


Gitanjali-101
Rabindranath Tagore

On The Seashore of Endless Worlds....

For the one who recently sailed into my life and restored a great many things in me - the love for Tagore's poems being one of them ...

gitanjali.mp3


On the seashore of endless worlds
children meet. The infinite sky is
motionless overhead and the restless
water is boisterous. On the seashore
of endless worlds the children meet
with shouts and dances.

They build their houses with sand
and they play with empty shells. With
withered leaves they weave their
boats and smilingly float them on the
vast deep. Children have their play on
the seashore of worlds.

They know not how to swim, they
know not how to cast nets. Pearl
Fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail
in their ships, while children gather
pebbles and scatter them again. They
seek not for hidden treasures, they
know not how to cast nets.

The sea surges up with laughter
and pale gleams the smile of the sea
beach. Death-dealing waves sing
meaningless ballads to the children,
even like a mother while rocking her
baby's cradle. The sea plays with
children, and pale gleams the smile of
the sea beach.

On the seashore of endless worlds
children meet. Tempest roams in the
pathless sky, ships get wrecked in
the trackless water, death is abroad
and children play. On the seashore of
endless worlds is the great meeting of
children.

(Gitanjali 60 - Tagore)