This is a part of the series of posts about Rabindrasangeets that have influenced me, I am not even a speck of what the bard was, but, I try…
I believe I feel like a river joining the sea whenever I encounter you in my thoughts. You are impenetrable yet, inevitable, and our paths are always going to collide. You are the burst of divine greens before my untimely death, and yet, I seek you out for there is little purpose to me without you.
Yet, we are meant to be separate. My thoughts, my fishes do not mingle with yours, and in the small parts in spaces where we can pretend that we are lovers, you remind me so harshly that it is never to be. Your tornados, your typhoons, ravage me and my lands. I overflow with emotions, I let the banks drown out the pain that you cause whenever you are on a whim.
For I miss the summers, the calm when you are going to sit and drink in your own image, speaking of words that I do not comprehend. You would breathe so deeply in thoughts that would make me feel so insufficient, and yet, fulfilled. We are meeting uninterrupted, and happiness reigns.
I wish that it would be so always.
Yet, inevitably the seasons of the negatives blows over us. You push me back with force, I fume and rage. White froth, cold rage and the deaths.
I am stubborn, but, you fail to move too.
The third glass of whiskey makes you want to sleep it off, and make me want to go on and make love; make love till the sunset takes us into her arms like another who has had enough. You are ever an adult though, always a “No” waits, and I break. A piece of my bank becomes sand, a piece of tress falls into my way, I block myself.
This prevents me from wanting more, for I do deserve less.
However, I do not complain much. It is the endless nights when the Baul plays his mad music in the heart of mine, and your shores are alighted with campfires of newlyweds; you still welcome me to your arms. I dry off, and drench myself in tears we mingle. Then, the replies stream into an insignificant memory upon my person, and like the ever flowing water, it also floats away, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
Perhaps, this is the nature of waiting for the inevitable. You save me from being inadequate when you prevent me from getting too close too soon. It is a cautionary tale, it is a truth. And it makes it ever so sweeter, because some days you open yourself. Our thoughts play along. Our books remain unopened and we sing songs that are the truth as a whole.
You refuse me so, and that is enlightenment, for my losses make me love you ever more. You do not let me flow into expectations that overwhelm, you do not let me become less, we are just alright, almost there, and no one asks whether we are there yet. And I cry through your blessings in a drunken night, I adorn your pictures with thorns, I rage and rage. Yet, when inevitability pushes us together, I know that it has come in the right time, in the right place. And our kiss doesn’t smell only of my lipstick, but, of happiness. Every time I dive into the saltiness of your beard, I fall more for you again.
I guess, this is why I await, even though I wish I could escape, for you feel like a chain that does not yield, for you yield rewards when it is a midsummer’s evening, and we both are too late.
This is inspired by the song “Ami Bahu Bashonaye”, you can listen to one of my favourite renditions below.
Out of an Abandoned Hospital 