Every birthday, Tagore wrote a poem, and this is a later one. Published in Nabajatak (Newborn) in 1940, Jonmodin (Birthday) reflects the poet’s own dispassionate look at mortality.
BIRTHDAY
The one you decked
With many ornaments —
I do not recognise that personage,
Nor does my antarjami* validate
Your deification of my name.
The divine act of creation
Is beyond your comprehension.
By the sands lining the oceans
Of time, he sculpts rare statues,
Drawing draperies to a close
In absolute solitude.
Outside,
Light blends into darkness.
Some see that; some, something else.
Fragmenting the form from the shadow,
with imagined illusions,
Hollow at times — with these they initiate
Anomalies in introductions.
The sculptor creates
And with the creation plays,
Raises me from dust to light,
From brightness to night —
Everyone knows that this is transient,
The wheel of time’ll shatter it all to smithereens.
Some seem to be blessed
With fleeting immortal fame.
For a few moments, the delusion holds
But what remains is a fistful of dust.
Death washes and wipes away all other signs.
All you people distract yourselves
With the doll you have decked.
Will he get more time?
Will he become eternal?
As you imagine the future,
My personal sculptor
Laughs, watching
From the corner of his eye,
That is what I muse on today.
*Antarjami: the one who knows your inner soul, normally refers to God
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This poem has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty with editorial input by Sohana Manzoor
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