The Homeless

Polli-geetis which literally mean village-songs are Bengali folk songs that have a way of touching the heart with their simple representation of rather complex matters of emotions and philosophy. My father, who was an master of Indian classical vocal music, was also an exponent in folk music particularly those had a subtle philosophical tint. One song that he sometimes hummed, was

Porer jayga porer zamin
Ghar baania aami roi
Ami to shee gorer mallik noi

Translates to

This place, this land –
On which I have built my house –
belongs to someone else.
I can’t call myself its owner

As a child I used to think that this is the lament of encroachers who had been caught and asked to evict :)

Home is such a complex term. The old saying goes, Home is where the heart is. But how often we know where our heart is? The heart of the money minded may lie at the stock exchange, of the philanderer at the house of ill-repute, of the pining girl at the house of beloved (in a common Indian context). But are those truly their home? What happens of the heart and the home when expectations break, for anything man made is transient, has a shelf life beyond which it rots away.

What happens to the home when the heart it held ensconced drifts away?

What happens to the heart when the home that was its retreat wants it no longer?

Tragedy? Naah!!!
What happens is freedom from transience. Or at the very least cognition of the inevitability of transience. And only when one becomes aware of darkness can someone appreciate light…

Did Siddharth not have to leave his wife and son to achieve the enlightenment that illuminated not only himself but the whole of mankind? Did Nimai not have to leave home to become the Krishna Chaitanya who reintroduced the nectar of the Lord’s love to a perched humanity?

Homeless is not the absence of home, it is the absence of the need to belong to a man made structure. For in denying oneself the attraction of the transient can one truly give in to the attraction to the permanent home, which in my psyche takes the form of Lord Krishna’s Lotus feet..

Tomar Sreepad pod-de, Mojiya Thaki
Hari-he amar aai bashona..

Let my mind and soul remain immerged evermore, in your lotus feel. My Lord, my Hari, that is my only desire..



Sri Krishna Sarnam Mamah