Old Song

I have heard this song more times than I can remember since childhood but for the first time this evening, it made me cry. Rabindra Sangeet I have been told is more about being able to emote to the lyrics and the tune than sophisticated technique. Being that I had only conversational knowledge of Bengali for the longest time, the pathos or the romance of the lyrics were lost on me.

There is something deeply melancholy about this tune. Yet I had never thought of it as anything but a beautiful song of love before. Today it made me ache for a lost time of my life, for that last time when it had not taken an effort to look forward to every new day with happiness and hope, when there were only endless dreams without the need for grappling with reality itself.

It is amazing how the same song at different times can resonate with feelings of love, longing, loss and pain. I must have not known pain as intimately as I do now and in that I had missed out a significant part of what this song must try to convey at least in a rendition like this one.