A mile a day ......

এমনি করে ঘুরিব দূরে বাহিরে ... ..

(Emoni korey ghuribo durey bahir-ey ... )

I shall keep wandering. Away from home. Far away .....

There are two contrasting experiences  from my childhood and adolescent years that helped me to develop a habit which  has stayed with me through the rest of my life until now.

It developed while growing up in my beautiful, beautiful village -- unless one sees my village, one would not know how delicately, how silently, how devastaingly beautiful it is ... More specifically the walks ... I could run around .. go from one village to another .. just shout out  to my very young mother that I am going to her parental home three km away and run off through paddy fields, negotating grazing cows, past those ponds dark and deep  lined with palm trees. The open sky, dazzlingly bright or filled with grey clouds, the wind across the field filled me with happiness beyong belief.

Then we came to Kolkata - five of us in a single room. Gone were the rains falling on natural ponds; here during monsson the roads became ponds filled with sewage. Still Kolkata is or was Kolkata .... and again I took to walking long distances .. through the narrow bylanes of North Kolkata .... For a good eleven years I walked along these roads, covered great distances on foot, and observed a trapesty of life that almost no city in India can offer now. I was lucky. My parents either did not want to or could not afford to keep an eye on me and I wandered round and round  a city that reverberated with gunfights on my way to school  during Naxalite movement, a city that dimmed lights at night during the 1971 Bangladesh war of liberation when according to the Dhaka radio Pakistani army would claim to have already captured my beloved Howrah bridge ( !) and a city that provided escape via trips to my village in sleepy trains .....

These walks have saved me. I know that over many years  in times of trouble Mother Mary did come to me speaking words of wisdom while I walked along roads on Long Island, Cambridge, New Jersey and many years and many kilometers later now in Bangalore.

A mile a day may or may not keep the doctor away ( certainly not for ever ), but

My walks have kept me going........

এমনি করে ঘুরিব দূরে বাহিরে,

          আর তো গতি নাহি রে মোর নাহি রে ॥

          যে পথে তব রথের রেখা ধরিয়া

          আপনা হতে কুসুম উঠে ভরিয়া,

চন্দ্র ছুটে, সূর্য ছুটে,    সে পথতলে পড়িব লুটে--

          সবার পানে রহিব শুধু চাহি রে ॥

          তোমার ছায়া পড়ে যে সরোবরে গো

          কমল সেথা ধরে না, নাহি ধরে গো।

জলের ঢেউ তরল তানেসে ছায়া লয়ে মাতিল গানে,

          ঘিরিয়া তারে ফিরিব তরী বাহি রে।

          যে বাঁশিখানি বাজিছে তব ভবনে

          সহসা তাহা শুনিব মধু পবনে।

তাকায়ে রব দ্বারের পানে,   সে তানখানি লইয়া কানে

          বাজায়ে বীণা বেড়াব গান গাহি রে