Love after Love: Rabindranath Tagore’s Poem, On the Nature of Love

This week in Daak:

1. Love after Love: Rabindranath Tagore’s Poem, On the Nature of Love

2. Carry Your Stuff in Style

3. Daak Recommends

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1. Love after Love: Rabindranath Tagore’s Poem, On the Nature of Love

Whether you found yourself celebrating Valentine’s Day last week or scoffing at the idea as capitalist propaganda to ritualize something deeply personal, love is an idea worth thinking about. In this poem, Tagore dwells on the elusive and capricious nature of love, which often appears on the vast landscape of our life unpredicted. And when it does, our life is immediately bisected into a before and after; it begins to seem like a grand scheme — even prior obsessions and half-loves which have faded away — leading us to this moment of realization. Tagore doesn’t bother dwelling on the longevity of this love. Instead, he clings to the ‘faith’ that life holds endless possibilities of such a transformative encounter.

The night is black and the forest has no end;
a million people thread it in a million ways.
We have trysts to keep in the darkness, but where
or with whom - of that we are unaware.
But we have this faith - that a lifetime's bliss
will appear any minute, with a smile upon its lips.
Scents, touches, sounds, snatches of songs
brush us, pass us, give us delightful shocks.
Then peradventure there's a flash of lightning:
whomever I see that instant I fall in love with.
I call that person and cry: `This life is blest!
for your sake such miles have I traversed!'
All those others who came close and moved off
in the darkness - I don't know if they exist or not.

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2. Carry Your Stuff in Style

Have you seen our tote bags with quirky Kalighat prints? Spacious and sturdy, these bags are sure to conversation starters wherever you go!

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3. Daak Recommends

Complement this with an another Daak on Tagore’s children’s poems which carry all the innocence and heartbreak of childhood.

Listen to a selection of songs from Bengali movies composed and penned by Rabindranath Tagore.