While listening to Amiya Thakur’s rendition of Tobu Mone Rekho, the Rabindrasangeet, at a lecture I got reminded of certain days in which you look fine but on the inside, you are wretched, and that’s also one of the ways that depression and trauma work or trigger oneself. Some songs, especially Rabindrasangeet that belong to the Pujaa and Prem Porjaye resonate well with grief. In one of his videos, Arko Mukhaerjee says, Biraha is Biseshbhabe Raha, that is a separation that is mixed with the longing for togetherness.
For me, Biraha is not always the separation from an ex-boyfriend or a friend whom I love so dearly, who had shrouded me in the veil of indifference. Biraha, for me, is something that encompasses the all-pervading separation of my dear ones into the clutch of death. Taking a cue from the clip from Jatiswaar that had gone viral, I lose myself in the feeling of the Biraha, the moment the doors of the furnaces of Nimtala ghat, get themselves closed, mechanically or to be more appropriate abruptly.
The past few days, after losing Dadu, I have tried to introspect what was actually our relationship all about. It started with the fact that his ways of dealing with life were different from mine. But in that love-hate relationship, we had that amounted to a big jolt at Nimtala, there are also certain fond memories.
Of those little snippets of my childhood days that my Ma used to tell me about was that I went and roamed the whole of Gorabazar with Dadu but the morsel of boiled apple that Ma had put into my mouth was intact when we returned home. I can also fondly recall how Thakuma used to make squash out of fresh pomegranate and give it to Dadu because he always had low haemoglobin and how both Dadu and yours truly used to create a whole lot of cacophony over that glass of fresh fruit juice.
I’ll be very honest and candid while I write this. Thakuma was a lot more dear to me than him. She used to take me for bargain regular groceries, I was her morning walk partner when I used to come and stay in this house. But Dadu, for me was that solo evening walk person who got overshadowed by the bright presence and bonding with me and Thamma.
On the only day I could contain my emotions and went to Surer Maath where she used to go for morning walk, I was engrossed in complete numbness and I could just imagine her mortal remains, and how they were not given to us due to COVID and two kind souled men who managed work there at Nimtala allowed us to have a hold to her Aaasthi. There were so few people that day, because of Covid, and she loved social gatherings so much and in the last rites, there was so small number of her loved ones.
But now there is a complete numbness in my emotions whenever I pass by their room. It feels so empty, so foreign, so desolate. I could recall both of them fighting over the airconditioner’s degree of coldness and as I enter there I can see my reflection in their mirror, the airconditioner and the remote that do remain as a witness to their tiff, like me.
But the airconditioner, remote, all these things cannot think and they can stay quietly, But for me, it is a difficult task, because the day I did graduate, I came here to share the news with him, now who would I share new with when I get my convocation or my post-graduate degree…it would be difficult…but I have the mirror, the AC’s remote and the pomegranate juices to help me overcome this numbness.
Tobu mone rekho would also be there, hopefully with me, just the way during Thamma’s time I had almost always listened to Amar Praner Pore Choley Gelo Key. Last day at BBS, while listening to the song, I could not contain my tears. One of my Mastermoshai had asked me whether everything was all alright.
But as Rituparno Ghosh rightly puts in his song, Sakhi Hum, which we have listened to in the classroom of Comparative Literature while reading the emotions behind Biraha, is “Sakhi Chirabhagini Hum”. But here, Tagore finds me solace here, by saying Tobu mone rekho.