Krishnakali Ami Tarei Boli
I was once again listening to this song rendered so beautifully by Suchitra Mitra.
But this time my mind was more on the lyrics. After all a Tagore song is best appreciated if the lyric is well understood.
I could vividly picture a sky dark with clouds and the the plants in the paddy fields swaying with the gust of a wind that blew from the east. I could see a dusky village belle rushing out of a hut to look for her cows lowing in fear of an impending storm.
I could see this as I listened to the song. With a few words, Tagore could make the image as real as real could be. I remembered my experience of being caught in a village road more than forty years ago when I saw a patch of dark cloud in the distant horizon across what seemed like a limitless paddy field suddenly engulfing the whole sky and then a raging storm that was almost turning the world around before it started raining. But then Tagore is the greatest poet we ever had and one of the greatest the world has ever seen.
I did not have any encounter though with any village belle, dark or white. May be because I never had Tagore's eyes.
On a more prosaic note, this post is not about poetic imagery. It is about Tagore's way of looking at life. What did he see in this girl ? She had a dark complexion, which would not find much favour with the match makers of the village those days and will not even today.When it comes to girls, we continue to have a fixation about the fair complexion - any matrimonial column is a testimony to this.
But the poet saw in this dusky village girl a stunning beauty. In her dark gazelle eyes, and in her flowing locks of hair. In the way she stepped out of her hut and looked at the sky. She was ,to him, like a flower, the flower Krishnakali. Whatever others might say, they may look down upon her for her dark skin but the poet makes us look beyond her complexion and see her as the beautiful girl she is. Tagore wrote this a long time ago when we believe prejudices were stronger and much more entrenched. We adore Tagore- our Rabindranath, our Rabi Thakur- but we learn nothing.
Dwiju
ReplyDeleteExellent observations. At some stage you should think of publishing your thoughts. What better way there is than to reminiscence the past and the present and write succinctly in retirement as you are doing.
with regard to Ravi Thakur I am wondering what he would have done if he has to marry a Krishnakali who was less than fair. I suppose we all become wiser as we grow older, he was no exception except that we haven't got a fraction of his talent.
In another of your blog you wrote about Bengalee's pocket being "Garer Math". What has happened to their brains?
Dadamoni
Dear Rangajethu
ReplyDeleteIt is so nice that you have started writing all over again. I read all your recent posts and hope you continue writing like this.
The fairness that you touched upon above, is now not restricted just to women. The days of tall/dark/handsome men are over in India, with companies roping in big stars to sell fairness lotion for men. However, I don’t think the fixation is only with Indians by the way. One of my Thai friends told me, Thai men are not good in outdoor sports because their mothers don’t want them to play in the sun. Similar sort of prejudices exist with most Asians. I have seen Korean men and women enter a saloon with picture of their favourite stars and requesting the hairdresser to make them look same.
It is sad. I believe we humans will someday become extinct and these are signs that before extinction we are becoming monkeys again. Hence, more and more people are getting darker and getting concerned.
Regards
Tanmoy
Dadamoni, it seems you have finally overcome the problem of posting a comment.On the issue at hand,I think we will never know as Rabi Thakur never had to make a choice. His bride was chosen by his family which obviously followed the contemporary norm.But the point you are making is quite valid - it is not always that one practises what one preaches.
ReplyDeleteAs regards Bengali brains, I think it still works well - when outside the confines of Bengal, or rather India.
Tanmoy, it is nice to know that you have been reading my posts.Every piece of writing welcomes a reader, in fact needs a reader.To quote a line from a poem, Rabindranath's again 'tater booke lage jaler dheu, tobe shey kalotan othe, batashe banoshabha shihori kanpe, tobe shey mormor kote '(beyond me to translate).
ReplyDeleteIt is only recently I came to know from Dadamoni about the strong bias that East Asians have towards a fair complexion. I thought it was an Indian obsession.Now that I think about it, the term 'fair sex' seems to indicate it is global.
Incidentally, in some parts of India, western and northern in particular, young girls are not allowed to drink tea on the misconceived notion that tea might darken the complexion.It has always been a marketing challenge before the tea industry.