“And when my voice is silenced in death, my song will speak in your living heart.”

(My Song…Gitanjali…Rabindranath Tagore) 

This always happens to me. Whenever I want to write about someone very close to my heart, I lose out on words. I don’t really know where to begin, and I have no clue on how to end. And so, invariably, I go blank whenever I am asked to write about you. Which is why, this time around, I decided to write to you instead. I am hoping; that words will flow as easily as they do when I write to people I love.

I wouldn’t lie…I have not been an avid reader of your work. There is a lot I am yet to discover, a lot I have yet to live, a lot I have yet to experience. I have been the average Bengali girl, enamoured by your songs that are very commonly heard by virtue of being a music lover, by virtue of my birth in Bengal, by virtue of growing up in a family that swears by every creation of yours. I grew up in awe of your creative ability…the way it seems you touch words and they become poetry! I have secretly wished I had my way with words. I did not realise when love overtook awe and you became a loved one…I guess it is anyway a process that works its magic silently.

I came to hum your songs to myself when alone…I began to quickly search the internet for some poems I had read as a child and read them all over again…I bought the entire collection of your writings with a serious intention to read through all…cinema featuring any of your songs began to connect more! Even dancing, that has always been a very special part of my life…has not escaped your magic…and somehow today, I feel most at home dancing to the songs you penned…! 

I have still not been able to figure out what exactly draws me to you…sometimes, I think it is your simplicity, sometimes your depth, sometimes just the enigma that you are...and sometimes, I feel just the fact that you are a miracle in yourself keeps me mesmerised. It is oft repeated that there has only been one you, so above the rest of us, yet so deeply connected to our very being…and that is why I have no shame in saying that I am just one of the billions who love you knowing very little of the vast ocean that is you…but yes, you are very integral to my life!