Tag: Hey Nutan

Categories
Tribute

Celebrating Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) in the role of the blind singer in his play, Falguni (published in 1917). Art by Abanindranath Tagore. From Public Domain

On May 7th 1861, or Pochishe Boisakh of the Bengali year 1268, Rabindranth Tagore was born in Jorsanko, Calcutta. That time, there was one subcontinent. Borders were fluid though the concept of countries had already started making inroads with the onset of colonials more than a couple of centuries ago. Rabindranath Tagore — a man who rejected the academia and earned no degrees — set the world aflame with his words and ideals. Many of his works hope to inspire people out of miseries by getting them in touch with their own strength. He created Santiniketan and Sriniketan to train young minds, to close social and economic gaps, to override the stigma of walls that continue to box and divide humanity to this date. Subsequently, his works, especially his writings, have become subjects of much academic discourse as well as part of popular cultural lore.

Tagore celebrated his own birthdays with poetry on Pochishe Boishakh. Pochishe Boisakh falls between 7-9 May on the Gregorian calendar. We start our celebrations with translations of his birthday songs and poems. The song translated by Aruna Chakravarti was the last he wrote, and based on a long poem he had written in 1922, also featured here. We also have the first birthday song he composed in 1899. In prose, we bring to you works that showcase his call for change and reform. Fakrul Alam has translated a powerful play by him, Red Oleanders, which strongly seems to reflect the machinations of the current world and ends on a note of hope. We can only carry an excerpt from this long play but it will be a powerful read when published in full. Somdatta Mandal shares a translations of an essay in which Tagore airs his views on the need for change in social norms — the strange thing is it would still seem relevant today. And Himadri Lahiri rendered an essay from Bengali to English on his views about the British Raj. We also have a story about a woman who changed social norms and her religion, translated by Chakravarti.

Birthday Poems & Lyrics

Hey Nutan or Oh ever new has been translated by Aruna Chakravarti in Daughters of Jorasanko. This was the last birthday song he wrote in 1941, a few months before he died. It was based on the long birthday poem he had written in 1922. Click here to read.

 Pochishe Boisakh Cholechhe (The twenty fifth of Boisakh draws close…), a birthday poem written in 1935, seems to be a sad reminder of mortality and dreams left unfinished. Click here to read.

Pochishe Boisakh (25th of Baisakh) is a birthday poem Tagore wrote in 1922 and the poem from which he derived the lyrics of his last birthday song written in 1941. Click here to read.

Jonmodiner Gaan or  Birthday Song by Tagore was written in 1899 and later sung as Bhoye Hote Tobo Abhayemajhe ( Amidst Fears, May Fearlessness). Click here to read the translation.

Prose

An excerpt from Tagore’s long play, Roktokorobi or Red Oleanders, has been translated by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.

Tagore’s essay, Classifications in Society, has been translated by Somdatta Mandal. Click here to read.

 Raja O Praja or The King and His Subjects, an essay by Tagore, has been translated by Himadri Lahiri. Click here to read.

Musalmanir Galpa (A Muslim Woman’s Story), a story by Tagore, has been translated by Aruna Chakravarti. Click here to read.

Bengal Landscape. Art by Sohana Manzoor.
Categories
Nostalgia

A Musical Soiree

By Snigdha Agrawal

This was an annual event organised at home, on Tagore’s birthday.  Preparations started a week before ‘Pochishe Boishakh’)[1].

Musical instruments were dusted and tuned, particularly the most used harmonium and tablas. The living room was rearranged.  Chairs were pushed against the walls.  Centre and side tables were removed, creating space for floor seating.  Durries were laid over the carpet.  All the pash balish — bolsters — in the house with freshly laundered covers, placed haphazardly for those wanting to recline.  A space earmarked for the performers, usually against the room’s longest wall.  On this wall hung a fairly large black and white framed photo of Tagore, garlanded with freshly picked jasmine flowers. Not the fully bloomed one.  White buds with short green stems.  We girls were given the responsibility of making smaller wristbands from the jasmine buds, presented to the visitors.  Stalks of rajanigandha (tuberoses) stood erect in tall vases placed on either side of the photo. 

The overpowering smell of jasmine and tuberoses drowned other smells floating in from the kitchen.  A hands-full kitchen as no jalsa[2] is complete without serving the guests chai and piping hot assortment of pakoras — onions, potatoes, brinjal, pumpkin flowers, battered fried crispy brown. Poppy seed-sprinkled vegetable chops, cylindrically shaped, were polished off as fast as they were made and served.  The service continued till the guests left, mouths sweetened with the dessert — usually rossogollas, delivered by the sweet-meat dhoti-clad guy, arriving on foot, carrying gigantic-sized aluminium dekchis[3]balanced on two ends of a pole, hoisted on his shoulder.

It was an open house event for those interested and wanting to join.  There were the regulars and walk-ins as well. Performers and audience.  A manageable crowd most years. Rarely spilling out into the adjacent veranda.  Cane chairs were lined up to accommodate the latecomers.  Ma, a gifted and trained singer had the honour of opening the ceremony with the song “Hey Nutan, Dekha dik aar-baar janmero prothamo shubhokhan…”[4].  On popular demand, she went on to sing a couple of Tagore’s songs not omitting the song dedicated to Boishakh “esho hey boishak, esho…esho. Taposniswasbaye mumushure dao uraye, botsorer aborjona dur hoye jak…”.  [5]A song that has been on our minds, with the current heat wave raging throughout the country.

As the evening progressed there were recitations from Tagore’s poetry collection.  A young couple, Soumenda and Rinadi, our neighbours, had the gathering spellbound with their singing and poetry recitation.  Close neighbourhood friends of ‘Puluda’, the affectionate nickname of the famed actor, the Late Soumitra Chatterjee, the talented couple were in demand at many such musical soirees held on Vijaya Doushami[6] in community clubs.  And through them, we met the greatest Bengali screen actor of all time, on many occasions, when he visited after the day’s outdoor shooting in the picturesque surrounding in Maithon and Panchayat, way back in the 1960s. 

With our leaving the gated community complex in 1968, ended the annual Rabindra Jayanti home celebrations. A not-forgotten era.  Rabindranath Tagore lives on. These days, I listen to Rabindrasangeet on YouTube, remembering the days of youth, Ma’s full-throated voice, and Somenda, and Rinadi regaling us with their practised/professional voices. Pakoras are replaced now with sushi.  God rest their souls. 

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[1] The 25th day of the Bengali month of Boishakh, recorded as the official date of birth of the Rabindranath Tagore in 1861. As per the Gregorian calendar, the date falls between the 7th or 8th of May.

[2] Musical soiree

[3] broad-rimmed cooking utensil with a flat round bottom

[4] Oh ever new!/ Let my eyes behold once more/ the first blessed moment of birth.- Translation by Aruna Chakravarty, Borderless Journal

[5] Hail O boisakh! Welcome./ Blow away deadly diseases with your ascetic breath./May the debris from the old year disappear. – Translation from Borderless Journal

[6] Last day of Durga Puja

Snigdha Agrawal (nee Banerjee) has published four books and is a regular contributor to anthologies.  A septuagenarian, she writes in all genres of poetry, prose, short stories and travelogues.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

Categories
Tagore Translations

Pochishe Boisakh: Rabindranath Tagore’s Birthday Poem

Pochishe Boisakh[1] was written by Tagore on 8th May 1922, and published in a collection called, Purabi [name of a raga] by the poet himself under the aegis of Vishwa Bharati.

Purabi by Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore(1861-1941)
Night gives way to dawn.
I bring to you
By hand,
The full saga of
My birth written
By the rays of
The morning sun.

A blood smeared sun rises out of the horizon.
Faint shadows of the woods play lonely notes of the Bhairavi.
Saal, palm and sisir trees murmur to
Break the silence of the outskirts.
On the dry fields, a blood-red path resembles
The forehead of a sanyasi* smeared with holy paste.

This day returns every year
In different guises on this earth —
Sometimes, filled with copper-coloured mangoes,
Or rustling with young palms,
Or, crackling with dry leaves in the mid-day sun,
Sometimes rushing to free itself
Like the clouds of the
Unshackled kalbaisakhi*.
And it comes to me
When I am alone,
Drunk with the northern breeze,
Hands me a gift —
A plate made of the blue sky
And then a zephyr filled cup of nectar.

This day has dawned today.
My heart beats rapidly
As if someone is blowing a conch resonating
With the susurration of infinite oceans.
Birth and death like
The skyline meet in the circle of life.
Today they come together.
A white radiance seems
To overflow with music from
The flute of Time, filling the emptiness.
Endless music irradiates
My soul singing from within.

Morning descends with a
Calm smile and
Whispers into my ears:
“I have come anew amidst many.
One day, you arrived
In this universe
Redolent with the perfume of fresh mallika blooms,
Amidst the breezy caresses of the chattim tree,
In the heart of darkness,
Under a steadfast, azure gaze.
I kiss the forehead
Of the new you.
I have come to awaken you
On this exciting day.

“Oh, newly fledged,
Let’s revisit the start of your life.
Today your existence is overwhelmed
With transient dusty correspondence.
Remember, O youth,
Your first birthday…
Unblemished —
Pure, like the first moments of your life;
Like the waves of the ocean, revive
Every second of
Your first day.

“Oh, newly fledged,
Arise, illumined
Out of the ashes of past.
Anew,
May you shine out of the mists
like a rising sun.
Holding the vernal flag,
Fill youthful moments with lush foliage —
In this way, newly fledged,
Pierce the emptiness, reveal yourself.
Revel in the exuberance of life,
Reveal the eternal wonders of the universe within your being.
The horizon reverberates with notes from the auspicious conch.”

In my heart,
Eternal new notes peal
On pochishe boisakh!

*Sanyasi- mendicant 
*Kalbaisakhi— nor’wester thunderstorms

In 1941, Tagore adapted the last part of the poem, changed a few words and made it into a song for his last birthday, acceding to the request of a birthday song to his family and friends. The song, ‘Hey Nutan’[2], has been translated by Aruna Chakravarti in her historical novel, Daughters of Jorasanko, as the last birthday song by Tagore. You can access the translation of the song and his last birthday celebrations depicted by Aruna Chakravarti by clicking here.

Screenshot
Screenshot
The poem written in 1922 from Purabi, Vishwa Bharati
The last part of the poem from Purabi
The last birthday song (1941)
The last part of the longer poem written in 1922 was adapted into a song by Tagore, his last paean to his own birthday, few months before his death in 1941. The changes made to the words and phrases can be seen in the screenshots pasted above.

[1] Pochishe Boisakh is the 25th of Boisakh. Boisakh is the first month of the Bengali calendar coinciding with mid-April to mid-May. Tagore was born on 25th Boisakh, which is a date that shuttles between 7th to 9th May every year on the Gregorian calendar.

[2] Aruna Chakravarti translates this as ‘Oh ever new’. In the poem, it has been translated as ‘Oh newly fledged’. It is from that point that Tagore made the changes and converted the poem into a song. He changed a few words, a few lines, giving it a new life as a song.  

(This poem has been translated by Mitali Chakravarty with editorial input by Sohana Manzoor)

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

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