Farewell Song by Rabindranath Tagore

Farewell Song is a translation of Shesher Kobita by Rabindranath Tagore, set in the backdrop of Calcutta and Shillong. 

Amit Rai, a city-bred boy, belongs to an aristocratic family. A polished man, Amit is well versed in the poetry of Robi Thakur and N. Choudhury.

Labanya, whose home is the deodar trees and her house library at Shillong, has dedicated herself to learning and is sunk deep in philosophy, literature and her father’s wise words.

Amit courts women and like a petals of flowers, he makes a pot pourri of the women he likes.

While, like Arjuna, the Pandav price, Labanya doesn’t waver from her thoughts painted with her morals. She rejects advances of any kind from her father’s students, too.

However, when Amit’s haughtiness brushes against Labanya’s simplicity, he is soaked in the hills and trees of Shillong, and she is painfully drawn to him. 

They weave their love story with their conversations, rather, beads of literature, and that gravitates them towards each other. But they are like the river Ganga and the river Thames? Would Labanya and Amit ever meet? Is Labanya another petal in his pot pourri? Answering such questions, are Tagore verses that are like the shiny silk—rich in texture but simple to own.

On Labanya, Tagore writes:

The woman was dressed in a white, narrow-bordered sari, a jacket made of some warm fabric, and white shoes of a desi pattern. She was tall, with a dark, glowing complexion; her large eyes, shaded by heavy eyelashes, had a tender intensity; her hair was tied back, swept away from her broad forehead; her beautiful rounded face and chin had the charm of an unripe fruit.

The 144-pages book is poetry in motion and is filled with such rich conversations between the protagonists—the book grips you right from the beginning. Way ahead of its times, the poems they share and the rich details makes this book a classic. 

And here’s a peek into the poem that Labanya writes:

Do you hear the chariot wheel of time?

Ever unseen, rousing

The pulse-beats of the universe;

Crushing the heart of darkness, as the stars lament.

O my friend!

Time, rushing by,

Caught me in its net,

Prisoner of the speeding chariot,

On a dangerous, carried journey.

Far from you,

It seems to me I crossed

A thousand deaths to reach

The pinnacle of this new dawn –

 my old name tossed

to the winds by the chariot’s rushing speed.

The book is a story of longing and belonging and while, has characteristics of Parineeta and Devadas, it is a beauty one must own yet not posses it.