The last hour or so has been filled with bursts of pure emotion, has presented startling revelations and has instilled deep admiration of creativity so sublime that it produces the most humbling effect of how far one is from any semblance of greatness.
I happened to finish Tagore's Farewell My Friend while on the bus ride back home.
It started off as a classy rendition, replete with metaphors and such figures of speech as strike that unique combination of being startlingly relevant to their context while not compromising on the beauty that they were invoked to deliver. The story flowed easily enough. The poet appealed to me, giving me samples of how to say exactly what one means, while at the same time, appealing to one most artistically. He seemed to me, reimposed on that image we're all led to have of him through our text books and our elders, a wise bearded teacher whose calm appearance is steeped in knowledge.
As the stone rolled on, it began to gather quite a bit of moss. The book got heavier and gradually became a little harder to read. While the paragraphs proceeded as beautifully and artistically, they seemed to have acquired a cryptic nature. The poet ventured to the very extremes of creative expression. However, while enhancing the poetic nature of these sentences, they seemed to lack the relevance that they earlier possessed. He now represented that which almost every genius has ventured into - eccentricity. He now assumed a mysticism that is frequently synonymous with one of an appearance so outré.
One is reminded of a jigsaw puzzle consisting of many pieces, pretty themselves, but separated from the whole. The preceding paragraphs had presented to me those pieces, leaving me unsure as to whether the writing was too hard for me or if it was in the poet's nature to leave his readers minds murky as when one does when he steps into a crystal clear pond that is bottomed in alluvium.
The conductor continues waving his baton, to the inexperienced eye quite the same as before. However, the music seems to change as surely as a mathematician, having tackled a demoralising deadlock, hurries to the end of his proof as if it were child's play. The pieces of the puzzle came together to reveal the grand scheme that this grand old man had in his enlightened mind all along, the precision and the murkiness, all its participants. The story moves on quicker than ever but at the same time, one's mind wages a battle with his own hungry curiosity to slow down and grasp the sheer magnificence of what has his emotions strung up like a puppet. The purest of feeling surged through my nerves and would've gotten the better of me if it were not for the crowded bus. The book ended fast, slowed down with the pleading of a lover who begs to change the mind of one who is determined to leave him forever.
The emotions, tragic and deep though, do not compromise the author's ability to teach, the lessons of a nature so pure that they leave the very soul stirred. In their manner, so harsh and heated, one is reminded of the divine blacksmith Hephastus, whose striking blows have made creations so legendary. When you step back to look at his masterpiece, the poet's eye twinkles with the mischief he has wrought on you, like Lord Krishna's, while his mind reflects the knowledge of the all knowing.
Farewell My Friend is one of the best books I'll ever read.
The original version of Farewell My Friend was actually written in Bengali as Shesher Kabita (The last poem). The version I read was translated by Krishna Kripalani, quite skillfully at that. If a translated version can be so inspiring, one is staggered at the thought of how good the original must be.
