 | Those who have poisoned you air, and blotted your light out,
Could you, yourself, My Lord! forgive them?
Could you, yourself, My Lord! love them too?
Since my childhood I lived and grown up with Rabindranath Tagore, who has always been my God. My mother used to recite his verses and one particular poem, Prasna, The Question, was and is my most favourite one among them all what I do recite several times every now and then. But ironically the same poem has become a true incident in my real life of late. I was just stunned realizing that!
Today, being “Baishe Sraban”, the death anniversary of the great poet, let me again recite this poem to pay homage to him. So true it has been in my uncompassionate life.
Prasna (Question)
Lord, time and again you have sent your
messengers to this heartless world;
and they have asked us to pardon all, to love all,
to pluck out of the heart the poisonous roots
of hatred.
They are adorable and ever to be remembered.
Yet in these dark days from my doorstep
I have turned them back with an empty salutation.
Have I not myself seen how, under cover of night,
secret violence strikes at helpless innocence,
and the aggression of the mighty unchecked
in lonely silence the voice of justice chokes?
Have I not seen young enthusiasts, in a wild rush,
court painful death, knocking against stone walls
in vain?
My voice is strangled, dumb my flute,
The world is swaddled and lost in a nightmare
of darkness abounding.
And I ask you: those who are poisoning your air, and blotting out your light,
can you forgive them, is your love for them too?
Rabindranath Tagore (7 May 1861 ‒ 7 August 1941) and this poem Prasna (January 26, 1932).
Nothing more needs to be conveyed in the cir cum stances beyond the above unforgettable words of Rabindranath that aptly mirror the anguish of a stunned humanity in the killing fields love and faith.
|
