A true master piece that won the First Nobel Prize in literature for India. Flowing out of the quill of the author who wrote the world's best National Anthem for India, the words in this book keep you lost for hours. If you try interpreting the verses of Gurdev, Rabindranath Tagore they give you myriad perspectives. They are undoubtedly unfathomable for a layman like me. Nevertheless,
A few articulations (my interpretations) I intend to share:
(1)
(Oh!! My Master/Nature/Love) You made me endless. Your touch made me lost in merry and my words inexplicable. You pour gifts in my tiny hands. You pour for eons. But still there is space to fill. That is your love for me.(2)
(Oh!! My Master/Nature/Love) I feel proud when you command me to sing. Your presence vanishes the sourness and unrhythmic in my song. I knew that song is the only means I can reach you. Stupefied by the joy I call you my friend.
(3)
(Oh!! My Master/Nature/Love) I never able to understand your song, that illuminates this world with light, presents in breaths of all creatures, flows in the streams, rivers. I struggle to give my voice to your eternal song. My voice never turned into a song. I scream in bewilderment.
(4)
(Oh!! My Master/Nature/Love) Knowing it is you, who is present in my heart, in truth and in my body and limbs; who gives me strength, knowledge; I shall ever reveal you in all my actions.
(5)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) I ask my mind to indulge to sit by your side. I shall finish my current jobs later. When I can't see your face my heart becomes restless and my works wanders in the shoreless ocean of toil. It is time to sit with you and sing in this silence and leisure.
(6)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) Reward this flower with a pain of plucking it with your hand. Pluck it before it loses place in your garland. It may not have the beauty and flagrance. However pluck it when there is still time.
(7)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) I don't adorn jewels (pride, money, and popularity) that interfere between you and me. They smear my songs for you with their jingling. My vanity must vanish before you. I let you make my life glorious, like a reed/bamboo carved to a flute.
(8)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) A child, wearing prince's robes and jewels can't play happily in fear of losing or tarnishing them. Let me play in the dust like a child, free from all bondage.
(9)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) What a fool I am to carry all the petty burdens upon my own shoulders feeling exhausted. With these problems looming I beg at my own door. I must leave all the burdens and problems on you. I shall curtail all my desires and accept your offering with love.
(10)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) You stay with with the poorest and lost. Your feet lies with them. Though I genuflect in front of you I can't reach your feet. I can't find you blinded with pride where you live with your isolated, wretched companions.
(11)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) Saints and priests can't notice your absence inside the four walls. They live in an illusion that you hear their chants and prayers. They need to wake up and find you with a farmer sloughing the soil, labour breaking stones in a quarry. They need to give up their tidy robes to feel your presence in dirt and soil.
(12)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) The journey to find you is the toughest and trickiest of all. One has to wander all the outside world, knock each door in the path. Finally, to find you in one's own house, in one's own innermost shrine, heart.
(13)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) The song for you remains unsung. The lyrics could never be frozen; except the wailing of my heart. I heard your footsteps along the road before my home. I spent a day making arrangements for you. But I can't invite you to my home. I hope to meet you but not yet.
(14)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) You ever save me by refusing my many unworthy desires. For years, you make me worthy of simple, great gifts you render: the sky, light, my body, my mind, and the life.
(15)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) In your world my life is purposeless. In your massive hall I have the corner seat. Please honor me with your command to sing at midnight or in the morning when your golden harp is tuned.
(16)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) I had the invitation to this world's festival. So I was born, I could hear, listen, and see. I played with the instrument (body and mind) you blessed as far as I can. I ask you has the time arrived to see your face and offer my salutation?
(17)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) I wait for you to give myself up into your hands. People who bind me with laws, ask me to leave the market left in vain. They curse me, call me heedless. Still, I wait for you.
(18)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) In this rainy dark night why do you let me wait at your door? If you are not with me I am restive, wailing, and lost in your thoughts. If you keep me aside I can't figure out how to pass this long, rainy hours.
(19)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) If you don't speak I endure your silence in my heart. I look forward for the morning, that brings your voice to the birds' nests and your melodies to the blossoming flowers. I wait like a vigilant night for the morning.
(20)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) When the lotus blossomed, I didn't know my basket was empty. Only now I felt sad realizing it. I woke up from the dream to fathom the sweet fragrance in the wind. I search for the source. I was in me, blossomed in the depth of my own heart.
(21)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) I have been waiting for you on the shore. The Spring being passed, I wait for you with faded flowers. The weathered yellow leaves fall along the clamorous shore. I gaze upon the emptiness not recognizing your song floating from the other shore.
(22)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) Today morning has closed its eye. Thick veil has been drawn over the wakeful sky. In the dark nights of rainy July, you walk as silent as night. All doors are closed along this deserted street. Oh my love, my doors are open. Don't pass by like a dream.
(23)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) Are you with me on this rainy night? I have not slept tonight. Once in a while I open my door and gaze upon the darkness, wondering which path are you treading to reach me. Which shore of the river, forest, and gloomy depth of the mazes are you tramping?
(24)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) When the day ends, birds fall silent, as you draw the blanket of sleep all across this world, as the lotus closes its petals, you come to me. From this wayfarer, who is running out of food and strength; whose clothes are unkempt and torn; renew him with your kind touch.
(25)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) You are the one who draws the veil of night upon the weary eyes to renew its sight to bright awakening. Let me keep my faith upon you before surrendering to sleep after an exhausting day. I wouldn't like to prepare for a worship with tired eyes.
(29)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) I am losing you because of a wall I am building around my true self for other earthly reasons such as: society, money, and success. I struggle to build it higher and higher so I lose the sight of my true self completely. I know my true self that carries my name is weeping in the dungeon.
(26)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) You had been sitting by my side whole night, playing revitalizing music. My dreams dance with your music though the mighty sleep concurred me. In the morning, I cursed my sleep. I screamed in regret wondering, how could I lose you of whom I always dream about.
(27)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) Woes in my life wake me up, reminding that you would be there with me forever. I search for you in a rainy night in desperate hope. Oh!! I forgot to lit my lamp. Lightening threatens me with a sparkling flash. Thunders frighten me with the intense roars. I lit my lamp with my desire and grope for the path to reach you.
(28)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) Despite acknowledging the fact that you are the invaluable wealth I must have, I couldn't throw away the tawdry possessions. I am covered with dust and the death. Still believing you are my best friend I ask you timidly and shamelessly for your help.(29)
(30)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) My true self (me) rushes to reach you, escaping from the dungeon. But I couldn't escape someone, follows me all along the path. He makes my path dirty and adds his filthy words to all I utter. He is my little self, who is brazen. But I am ashamed to come to you with him.
(31)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) I accumulate huge amounts of wealth, power and relationship because of you. One day I wake up from my bed to find me detained in my own coffer. I forge this unbreakable chain (responsibilities/craving for so many years), link by link with thorough inspection to bind this entire world, hold it with invincible power. When all the links were done and the chain is locked, It was too late to realize that I have been actually tied and enslaved for all these days.
(32)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) The love in this world imprisons me as long as I am committed; abandons me when I quit. But you love my lord is unconditional and sets me free.
(33)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) They (desires) begged for shelter in this unforgiving weather (society). They sat in the corner of my home, accepted whatever I fed. But at night when I am sleep they grow unstoppable and rob my holy shrine with their filthy hands.
(34)
(Oh! My Master/Nature/Love) Please don't let them (desires) conquer me completely. Please allow me to have a small hold on myself so that I can spell your name, see you in every object, reflect your presence inside me, bound by your will, and to carry out your purpose in my life.
(35)
(I am just not qualified to write my interpretation to the best ever)
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action-
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
