The Other Side of the River
--
Plunge my oar in the water I take your oar in mine.
I believe that I have seen a light on the other side of the river.
The day will little by little turn cold.
I believe that I have seen a light on the other side of the river.
Above all, I believe that everything is not lost.
So many tears, so many tears, and I am an empty glass...
I hear a voice that calls to me,
almost a sigh: It rows, it rows, it rows!
In this edge of the world which has us imprisoned is useless.
I believe that I have seen a light the other side of the river.
I, seriously, am rowing, and inside, I smile.
I believe that I have seen a light
on the other side of the river.
---
dont know who wrote the first mail...and I loved rudrayani..what a wonderful name!!!!!...but I am happy,but also a little sad and a little jealous....about all thats happening...all the people who love you..I hope they really do...and for all the people who inspite of not being a part of your integral life,want your good.....but I am sad too...
Maybe we both are intrinsically very different human beings...born to the womb of the same mother...you feel and keep those feelings nicely wrapped,I feel,and I move on...maybe is it because women are essentially meant to flow?never asked any woman freind about it...My emotions are like thunders which come and go,like the river which doesnt know its destination,but just flows...yours is like that mountain which stands the test of erosion,wind,sun...and life......I donot want to go into which is nice, which is better.....but sometimes I really feel like being the mountain...which i never might be....sometimes I want to be just as good a human being as you...and not that blob of matter that I reduce myself to...is this self of yours a manifestation of staying alone for a long time?...I dont know.....
Sometimes when the river flows over the mountain maybe it does become a little too interlinked...so those times when I hurt your feelings..when I speak bad about people you love ,I just try to protect or more correctly gaurd you from those erosions...maybe truth,goodness still exists..we never get to believe it because we ourselves are moving away bit by bit from our own goodness....tai bhabtey bhoy lagey jey keu ashbey hoyto tor ei goodness take exploit korbey,manipulate korbey...you would either cut away that gangrenated part..or just stay mum....but bhoy hoy rey..because again you would keep thhose emotions nicely wrapped....
Right now we are at a stage,where we might embark on different journies...and I might not be close physically to you..maybe another person might come and sweep me away from this reality of mine..my ma my baba my dada...and this sense of "my" family.....but I just hope that we never forget ourselves.....
I would thank the commentators of the blog and rudrayani...for making me feel so close to my dada after a long long time........I wonder how every new birth,and every new emotions can make such difference....
love you
My closest ones, this one from pucchu, my sister darling, are writing at last and my patience with them is paying...Thank you, Oh Force! :)
And i would be missing something, if i dont chronicle this moment down.
The day: 23rd of February, 2006.
The place: Pittsburgh, along the eastern coast of the country called United States of America, in the western part of the state of Pennsylvania.
The writer: me.
The readers: All my friends, my sister darling, from whom comes extracts of the above thoughts she sent in an email, after she read my blog.
The last few hours: Have been as mishti - sweet as the past. Full of profound emotions. J writes a tearful email, i take a walk and lunch with SN who tells me of how sometimes there is a feeling of, just leaving everything and starting the 'walk', of the goal one reaches in life, being the 'living dead. SN is one of the nicest human beings i have ever seen in life. Come back, read pucchu's email. And i try to question, if i am indeed a mountain, that she sees in me, and she the river, or she becoming like the mountain, and i the river or somehow from our darling maa's womb, we have started this entire journey, of the rivers or the mountains...or was it all from something more, from that land the sole resident of which is the Force, beyond those rivers and the mountains.
Just dont know, if a poem could capture this enough, maybe it will come, for now i have nothing much, but to note this happening, and leave you with the poem above, the translation of Al Otro Lado Del Rio..from the movie, The MotorCycle Diaries, meaning 'The other side of the River'.
Then i go to:
http://www.motorcyclediariesmovie.com/home.html
click on Venezuela on the top right corner.
click on the 'Music Player'.
a new window opens with buttons for forwarding songs and increasing the voice levels.
I listen to the following songs.
a. Chipi Chipi
b. Al Otro Lado del Rio - The Other Side of the river
c. De Ushuaia A La Quiaca
In that order. Now i really need some sleep. Yesterday evening i had a strange dream. I was in Durgapur at home, shouting, making strange but laughable jokes with maa-baba-bon, living life i always did, then the sleep went off, i came back to Pittsburgh with eyes open, and while ordinarily, the realisation would have brought pain, this time, it brought a strange sense of complete transition.
Rivers always had a special place in my emotions. From the Damodar where i had to undergo my sacred thread rituals back home in Durgapur, to the Ganga in Roorkee where many years ago with Raj, dunno where he has dissappeared in life, we talked on the 'Rule of 3' in leading life, to the Hooghly back in Kolkata, one crosses daily, after arriving in the Howrah station from Durgapur, to Thakuma (grandmother) narrating her and the family's escape over the Podda, Meghna and Jamuna in Bangladesh back in Haridwar during our Kedarnath trip, or in Mumbai -- oops cant remember a river! :), (except offcourse at Murud and Harihareshwar), to the Teesta when last year with B i had been to the North Bengal mountains and plains, and then the gigantic Brahmaputra with its flickering Namaste to me, as we visited Guhawati too, to now Pittsburgh, and its threesome, Monangahela, what a nice name, Ohio and Allegheny...
Today I dont find it too hard to believe, after i wake from my dream, to live, to start the walk again, fully understanding how now i am on the 'Other side of the River', this time the Monangahela...:)
Only an Indian song, can capture the emotions running through me now! And yes Maa would have i am sure.
Dil to hain Bezubaan
Dil ki Sunaaon Naa
Aate jo Dil mein Hain
Hoto pe Laao naa,
Shaamo Ho yaa, Saher Ho,
Dil mein tum har pahr ho,
Saathiya...
~Palkein Jhukaaon Naa, from Saher....
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