REFRAIN
What feeling do you speak of, my friend,
What is this pain that you speak of?
All this ‘love’ that you speak of day and night,
Tell me, friend: what indeed is this ‘love’?
Is it all but pain and grief? Is it only full of sighs?
For what joy then do so many crave for such sorrow?
Through my own eyes, I see
All things well and beautiful,
All things ever-renewing, ever spotless –
Blue skies above over green forests,
Lovely full moons and gentle blossoms –
I see them all in my own joyous likeness:
For theirs is but laughter and song,
Sojourning to death amidst smile and play –
not knowing grief, not knowing dread,
not knowing the sorrows of desiring …
In joyous smile the flower wilts –
and the full moon waxes away in smile –
Undeterred in joy, the stars of the night
Pass away into the flooding of the dawn.
O, what happiness could ever match my own?
Come here, beloveds, let me now sing to you
Happy songs of a happy heart, come rest your souls!
Maybe your heart weeps each day now,
But someday you too will smile with me –
Someday with all woe and pain forgotten,
We will sing and dance together in happiness.
— Rabindranath Tagore (“সখি, ভাবনা কাহারে বলে”, ft. Trissha Chatterjee)
(Caveat: See this note for this kind of poetic translation.)
For Dhruv—
Delhi, Jyeṣṭha Kṛṣṇā Ekādaśī,
The 15th of May in 2023.