Palash and Jayjayanti used to enjoy a ride in a brand new two wheeler through the red-earth road on the bank of Damodar almost every day of week, except Sunday. Palash, a singer by nature, would hum out a song. Jayjayanti followed him by singing aloud. As I frequented the place, I happened to meet them often. They sounded like a musically-driven couple who burrowed a world of their own out of a day-to-day bored out mundane life.
When we fall in love, we burst into song. The tonal quality hardly matters. Yeh kahan aa gaye hum to ami tomar preme habo sobar kalonkobhagi – the lovers sing them all as they relish the togetherness of their existence. Singing is the medium when two souls come closer to each other.
But when I sing Dol phaguner dol legechhe – the only song I think I can sing — people around me throw a frightening look at me and run away. But the crows and cows do not mind. Rather they gather outside my window whenever I happen to sing. They join me to make some chorus. When I am done, the cows still keep on mooing as the crows call their hearts out. As I hurry to the window to shut it, a crow from the cornice looks at me with a frank affection. Maybe my song draws it to me. I do not bother myself if that crow is male or female. Surely my song blurs out that petty matter.
These days some powerful nations with nuclear capabilities love to fly balloons like innocent children. And those balloons would not get confined within their boundaries but fly out to the other countries and hover over their nuclear installations threateningly. Naturally they need to be shot down that triggers tensions on this war-worried planet.
I can’t help feeling that this world is running at a hurtling speed towards its self-destruction. We’ve successfully murdered and butchered Nature. What Man has left for himself to do is to kill himself. And Man has more than enough power to do that.
Only love can overpower man to go for a course correction. Love for the delirious red of Krishnochura, love for earth, love for the blue of sky, love for homeward flight of a lone bird in twilight, love for a (wo)man can retrieve man from an approaching Doom’s Day.
(I, in the meantime, extend my love for the lone listener of my Dol phaguner dol legechhe — the handsome affectionate crow that winks at me from my window.)