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A fragment of Torn Letters
By Subhamay Ray | April 8, 2008
A few lines from Rabindranath Tagore’s Chhinna Patra (Torn Letters) in my translation…
These days of Bhadra are almost windless and the loose sails of the boat hang lazily — the boat remains work-shy, unperturbed; it moves ever so sluggishly, its indolent movements scarcely awakening a ripple on the water. This widespread kingdom of water is covered with green algae while the sun shines with all its brightness of early autumn. I am sitting on a cot with my legs up on another cot and I hum the tunes all day. Even as the morning is touched with the melody of Ramkeli, the expansive world all about me is moistened with mercy that melted and spread all over the horizon. It seems that this Ragini (tune) is the own song of the wide sky. It creates a magic with its wondrous chants. How many broken words do I add to the disjointed tunes and through the days how many songs pile up one over the other and then I relinquish them, I abandon them to float in the river of my abnegation. Sitting on the cot and tasting the golden sunrays on the face of the sky with my eyes, I brush the sappy softness of the algae on the water with my mind. Whatever thoughts come to me in their lazy spontaneity are recorded and to try and get more than this is beyond me. Thus my entire morning was taken by the rare simplicity of this Ramkeli.
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