@ Kamla True indeed. I wish I could understand what life is all about. Sometimes, I tend to believe that God created mankind to play a game. He endowed mankind with the power to evolve over time and gain ever clearer visions about the nature of eternity. The day we end up understanding everything, life would turn meaningless. There are success stories too mind you. Picasso, Hemingway and others did exist. But more often the enormity of greatness is far too difficult for ordinary souls to visualize.
@ sowmyapbhat I am happy that you appreciated it. After watching and hearing, I could not speak for the next half an hour or so. Mindboggling. Beautiful. Serene.
My dear OJ I always ask myself the question which is more mysterious-Life or Death? The mystery of death lies in its being unexplored. No one knows what lies beyond death. That is awesome indeed but does it make it beautiful? How can anything be beautiful if it is beyond all comprehension? My vote is for Life. It is equally mysterious but only until we reach that stage which at one time looked mysterious. It is not the mystery of what lies ahead that makes life beautiful. Life’s ability to seamlessly integrate the good and bad, tragedy and comedy, sorrow and happiness and all other emotional antonyms is what makes it enchanting. The most predominant aspect of life that brings out its best is the tragedy. The Bard became an immortal celebrity through his intense tragedies. We remember Michelangelo through all his agony and ecstasy. Cleopatra’s love for Antony rides supreme over her relationship with Caesar. Romeo and Juliet, Laila and Majnu are all firmly entrenched in our hearts for the tragic life they had to live through. Your own Bengali literature lives more on the weight of its tragedies. Rabindra Sangeet is immortalized by its undertone of tragedy. Von Gogh symbolizes tragedy in all its essence. His art symbolizes that tragedy. The paintings of the genius and the accompanying music have an undertone of tragedy. This is no harvest song of great exuberance. It overawes us because of its stunning undertone of tragedy. This reminds me of a Rabindra song “Jakhun porbe na mor payer chinha” which I have heard rendered by Hemantha or Subir Sen. The music that accompanies the paintings brings out the richness of Von Gogh’s mind. Thank you OJ for this double treat. Both are indeed spellbinding. Sri
I agree with you 100%. The mystery of LIFE, including its sufferings, its cruelties, its fascinating beauty are far more attractive than the mysteries of death. I think I tried to write precisely about what you are calling life in my own post on LIFE. Once again, I have to agree with you about LOVE. I have tried to approach the subject again and again, even at IL, but always came out with the conclusion that it is the tragedy of LOVE that endows it with its grandeur. May be I am an escapist. Perhaps I never understood it. I found a way out in uncosummated love because I always found its glory lying in its potential for infinite tragedy. Only in a recent post on the subject, I thought I had managed to make some sense out of the absurdity. But, strictly speaking, I failed. So, I came out with a crazy conversation! It's interesting that you are reminded of Tagore's beautiful song. I think Hemanta did sing it. He has many other songs along similar lines. The particular song I posted is so poignant because it is a piece of tragedy, unadulteratedly so. Van Gogh's endless tragedy lies in his unimaginable loneliness. It's the loneliness of the Creator Himself. The Creator is the only one who knows what eternity is all about. But his creations are far, far too pathetic as far as their visions go. And then, suddenly an aberration arrives in the shape of a Van Gogh. He shares with the Creator HIS visions. What fate can ever await him in human society but endless tragedy?
