Lines written from home
by Anne Bronte
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These images remind me of everything that I hold dear about India - a place I still call home. The colors, the motion and the suspended animation. The foods, the spices, the smells and the tastes. The changing seasons but the ever present the street vendors, the colors and the celebrations. It is a place that still stands out for me from the rest of the world. It is a country that is being transformed faster than it can realize. It is a country whose fate lies in the cauldron of development, technology and progress. I hope that even as it moves ahead in time - it manages to hold on to all that makes it special - its art, its history, its culture and its people.
And even as I miss home and all about it, I long to see the world - the world that is fast shrinking and becoming more and more homogeneous. I want to see it all before all the diversity is wiped clean.
And that is when the eternal Tagore comes to rescue
"and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.
My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said `Here art thou!
The question and the cry `Oh, where?'
melt into tears of a thousand streams and
deluge the world with the flood of the assurance `I am!'"
by Anne Bronte
Though bleak these woods, and damp the ground
With fallen leaves so thickly strown,
And cold the wind that wanders round
With wild and melancholy moan;
There is a friendly roof, I know,
Might shield me from the wintry blast;
There is a fire, whose ruddy glow
Will cheer me for my wanderings past.
And so, though still, where'er I go,
Cold stranger-glances meet my eye;
Though, when my spirit sinks in woe,
Unheeded swells the unbidden sigh;
Though solitude, endured too long,
Bids youthful joys too soon decay,
Makes mirth a stranger to my tongue,
And overclouds my noon of day;
When kindly thoughts, that would have way,
Flow back discouraged to my breast; --
I know there is, though far away,
A home where heart and soul may rest.
Warm hands are there, that, clasped in mine,
The warmer heart will not belie;
While mirth, and truth, and friendship shine
In smiling lip and earnest eye.
The ice that gathers round my heart
May there be thawed; and sweetly, then,
The joys of youth, that now depart,
Will come to cheer my soul again.
Though far I roam, that thought shall be
My hope, my comfort, everywhere;
While such a home remains to me,
My heart shall never know despair!
With fallen leaves so thickly strown,
And cold the wind that wanders round
With wild and melancholy moan;
There is a friendly roof, I know,
Might shield me from the wintry blast;
There is a fire, whose ruddy glow
Will cheer me for my wanderings past.
And so, though still, where'er I go,
Cold stranger-glances meet my eye;
Though, when my spirit sinks in woe,
Unheeded swells the unbidden sigh;
Though solitude, endured too long,
Bids youthful joys too soon decay,
Makes mirth a stranger to my tongue,
And overclouds my noon of day;
When kindly thoughts, that would have way,
Flow back discouraged to my breast; --
I know there is, though far away,
A home where heart and soul may rest.
Warm hands are there, that, clasped in mine,
The warmer heart will not belie;
While mirth, and truth, and friendship shine
In smiling lip and earnest eye.
The ice that gathers round my heart
May there be thawed; and sweetly, then,
The joys of youth, that now depart,
Will come to cheer my soul again.
Though far I roam, that thought shall be
My hope, my comfort, everywhere;
While such a home remains to me,
My heart shall never know despair!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
These images remind me of everything that I hold dear about India - a place I still call home. The colors, the motion and the suspended animation. The foods, the spices, the smells and the tastes. The changing seasons but the ever present the street vendors, the colors and the celebrations. It is a place that still stands out for me from the rest of the world. It is a country that is being transformed faster than it can realize. It is a country whose fate lies in the cauldron of development, technology and progress. I hope that even as it moves ahead in time - it manages to hold on to all that makes it special - its art, its history, its culture and its people.
And even as I miss home and all about it, I long to see the world - the world that is fast shrinking and becoming more and more homogeneous. I want to see it all before all the diversity is wiped clean.
And that is when the eternal Tagore comes to rescue
"and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.
My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said `Here art thou!
The question and the cry `Oh, where?'
melt into tears of a thousand streams and
deluge the world with the flood of the assurance `I am!'"
PS - Anne Bronte, the youngest of the Bronte sisters is a fascinating personality in herself. Although least renowned of the three, she was a great writer and a revolutionary for her times. Her second novel, "The tenant of Wildefill Hall" is a true and multilayered depiction of the position of women in the english society. The struggles of her character against such a male dominated society was the focal point of the novel making it one of the first truly feminist novels. The repercussions of the novel were so many that the elder sisters prevent a republication of the novel. Although I know very little about Anne (came to know of her very recently in a discussion with a friend about Jane Eyre and Jane Austen), I am fascinated by her and her story and look forward to reading her sometime soon.
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