Maybe Someday....

"She sits there all alone,
To knit her multicoloured dreams
She stares with her eye filled with tears
Through her small window, to catch a cloud's glimpse.

The tune she hums is in her mind but she lets it wander in the sky
Hold up your ears near your mind, maybe you can hear it if you try
The strokes of her brush makes the clouds fly and you'll understand if you open your eyes

She sits there all alone, her minds keep churning new dreams
And older clouds now conspire to bring it all down as it seems.
Her humming make the clouds pour down , and the drops dont end till she stops her song
My mind is drenched in this downpour, and like a wet crow I can sing along.

She sits there, all alone
She sits there, all alone "


These words arent mine. Well actually they are but really they arent .

Confused ? Well this is my translation of my current favorite Bengali Song. Its by a Bangladeshi Singer called Arnob. If you search for the song - Shey jey boshey achhey (She sits there) you will find it in youtube. If you are in my orkut friendlist and even if you are not , its there in my orkut videos. Listen to it. Although the video version is by a band called Black. I wont judge them. I have heard some other songs of theirs. They are good.

But Arnob..... well.. I heard this song quite by chance. And then I discussed it with a friend of mine here who is also an accomplished Tabla player back in Bangladesh and a friend of Arnob's and he suggested that I hear the other songs. And well... this guy ... is amazing. I mean I dont know who wrote the lyrics and who composed the music for the songs but if Arnob's only contribution was to sing which I dont think it was then even there he is amazing. Really. And well if he has something to do with music and/or lyrics, well then, I would definitely consider him as one of the really good musicians right now that Bengali Contemporary music is seeing.

I wanted to translate the song for the benefit of my readers who dont understand Bengali. And then while translating it I realised it wont sound like a song unless I made it rhyme. So here it was.. Its actually the literal translation of the song. But my words. Well not really my words but you can say that :)

The other song that I like and here again I would try to emphasize how important it is sometimes to take other people's suggestions when it comes to music and books, is Hariye Giyechhi (I am Lost). Suggested by my friend, Syed Mumtaz, better known as Taz, this song gripped my heart the first time I heard it. I didnt understand the significance till today about an hour and a half ago.

I have reached Ithaca, my univer-city, today evening. My entire apartment, which at some points of time last semester was inhabited by almost eight people is now completely empty. Pieces of old memories litter the room in the form of playing cards, usb drives, broken earphones and 80mm and empty chocolate wrappers. One might seem that i am being childish, mourning the loss of a few people whom I knew only for a few months. But then these were the same people with whom I shared my life in a place that was not only more than 12762 km in real distance but much much more if you counted how "far away" you were from home.

Those who remember this blog and its early posts, you would remember them as P2, S1, S2, and S3. But wait. I did not use those names did I?
It does not matter. Pushkar, Shreyans and Samved have left Ithaca. These were the first people I met here. The very first faces that welcome me the moment I stepped on Ithaca. Well maybe a few minutes later :) but whatever ! And they are gone. It didnt strike me the night we revelled at our farewell party, what feels like almost a month back. It did not strike me when I spoke to them as I boarded my flight to Newark enroute to Phoenix. It did not strike me when I chatted with them on gmail while they were packing and today when I look around my room it seems empty. No more sad jokes about anything under the sun. No more jokes about somebody's weight loss techniques, someone's psychic ability to disagree with everything that felt nice to others. I do sound a little sad don't I ? So maybe I will write about them some other time. Because I know all the other stories that I still have to say about the past few months have a lot of cameo and some star appearances by them :)

But coming back to the song by Arnob, Taz's suggestion was important because if you hear these two songs as the first few songs of Arnob you have heard, like it happened for me, you would probably love him as well. And thats why its sometimes important to have someone else suggest music or books because they would probably know which one to start with in order to really like the music. I dont remember if I have said this before and maybe I have but it can be possible that you might start listening to Oasis with Slide Away or Morning Glory and you may not like it, so much so that you would term them as a band you dont like much. But maybe had you listened to Wonderwall first or Dont Look Back in Anger you would have probably loved them more and more curious about their songs. It always happens with authors and artists and you would have experienced it subconsciously. Forgive me if I have repeated this theory of mine. Wont happen again. :)

Coming back to the song , for the third time.. It talks about how he loses himself inititally and then re-realizes that he has only lost certain parts and actually not lost himself totally
Read it yourself... (This time I am just translating it because its a little more serious and I dont want to ruin the song by trying to make a song out of it)

Hariye giyechhi, eito joruri khobor
(I am lost and that is the main news today)
obak dui chokhe, chaya kape bhoye ovimane
(Amazed I see my shadow tremble in fear and respect)

hariye jaoar, niyom nei ekhane
(It is forbidden to lose oneself here)
harabo bole, paa tipe rodey gelei, gota shohor bati jele shotorko
(And the moment I go out in the sun to lose myself, the entire city is alarmed with lights on)

paye paye harabar jaiga khuje mori.
(I die to find a place where I can lose myself)
Kothao nei jhumjhum ondhokar tokkhok daka nishuti te, rupkotha shune shiure othe na gaa
(Because there is not a single place, pitch dark, where the night filled with sounds of the lizard cry, makes you shiver on hearing a folk tale)

shopne amar shorire keu chorai na shiuli ful
No one showers flowers on my body any more in my dreams
alor akash nuye eshe choy na kopal.
The bright sky does not kiss my forehead anymore.


Hariye jaini tobu, etai joruri khobor
(But I havent yet got lost, and thats the main news today)
akankha aar hotashai hariye jawar kono mane nei
(There is no point in losing oneself in desire and despair)
nibir ghore adho alo bisshashe buk'er govire kar jeno dak ashe.
(In my silent room, in a twilight of conviction, someone calls me from within my heart)

Jodi konodin jhore jhore jai ondhokar
(Maybe someday the darkness will fade away)
bhalobasha dhuye dei gota mukh amar
(And love will wash my face away)
duchokhe shopno bhore diye jai keu
(Someone fills my both eyes with dreams)
jodi konodin otut bisshashe,
(Maybe someday, but with conviction)
jodi konodin, jodi konodin
(Maybe someday, maybe someday).

Listen to it. Its a wonderful song.

And thus Arnob claimed my heart in the last two and a half hour. But was it only because I found the room empty. Didnt leaving my brother's house where I spent a wonderful two weeks have anything to do with it? Didnt my frustration and a sense of despair regarding my lab have anything to do with it ? Didnt something else have anything to do with it? Was I really looking for memories or were they already there and I was trying to lose them ?

If you look at an a hemisphere from its round side you dont understand that its incomplete do you ? What about a complete sphere that is hollow from inside ? Do you realize it is so until you touch it ? What about a sphere made of glass placed beside a bubble of the same size ? Do you wait till the other breaks to know which one is which ?

Arnob sings in my ears. I try to seek a corner where I can hide and come out a new person.
Maybe someday. Maybe someday.

PS: 1) Please do not mind the translations. I just wanted to give you a glimpse of the romanticism of the lines and I might have just ruined it but then the ones who didnot understand Bengali would not understand the original anyways and those who do understand the Bengali, why would you read the translation ???? However if any of you can translate this song in a better way, please please send it to me as a comment on the blog. It will help the other readers.
2) P1, S1, S2 - I miss you guys!
3) H1 -- .. ... ... -.-- --- ..- -... ..- -... --- .-. .-. -.--
4) The wet crow is a really cute bird :)
5) Tokkhok - is really the gecko or the monitor lizard.
6) This is the last sentence of this blog.