Rain-Living

I don't pay much heed to anyone's expectations anymore, not even my own. It's precisely by holding expectations' hand that I've come to kneel before this hopelessness today! The thing about expectation is that it forces people to chase after this and that for no good reason. Today pursuing one thing, tomorrow another. It's so restless, never knows when to stop.

Hoping to get some particular thing, I keep myself alive—by force if necessary—until I obtain it. I tell myself, "Hey, shouldn't I buy that before I die?" "Shouldn't I see my daughter well-married?" "Let me at least get a PhD, what's the rush?" "I must start a dance school while I'm still alive!" And so much more like this. In the moment's spell, these seem terribly urgent, but later you see it was all just delusion and illusion.

Often, these expectations are never fulfilled anyway, and so by pushing death away through various means, one simply ends up living.

I live happily, I'm quite content. Sorrow doesn't touch me. Or rather, my skin has grown so thick that nothing can reach me anymore. Well, does this happen to everyone as they age? Or does it only seem this way as mental strength diminishes? I don't really know. But I know this for certain: when sorrow can't even find a way to escape in the intensity of happiness, that's when death begins!

Anyway, let me talk about myself now. When I think of that little me, I feel terrible pity for myself. The one my parents lovingly called Sayon—that little Sayon was today's Sayani Dasgupta. How that sweet pet name simply vanished behind fame!

As people grow up, those who call them by their pet names gradually disappear. When hardly anyone calls you by your pet name anymore, that's when growing up truly begins. We rarely get the chance to be close with those who call us by our formal names, because in trying to become big in society's eyes, we actually become rather small-minded people, and so we end up befriending the lowly. The higher people climb, the lower they fall.

In our efforts to properly establish our formal names, we become bad people, one by one. Yes, we get it all—name, fame, money, wealth—but in exchange we have to sell our entire being. Spiritual destruction rarely comes without worldly fulfillment.

In middle age, only our parents are left to call us by our pet names. They too leave eventually, taking with them that innocent pet name of their little darling. Our reputation grows, and our pet names are lost.

These days I see that even husbands and wives feel somewhat uncomfortable calling each other by pet names! Yes, I feel that way myself. When my daughters' father calls me Sayon, I get terribly annoyed. It feels like he's calling someone else, not me. His lips call me Sayon, not his eyes. He gets very hurt and says, "Can't I call you by your pet name? Who's closer to you than me now?"

I smile, pressing my lips together. Oh, if only circling seven times and chanting some meaningless memorized mantras could make someone your own! Everyone wants to think of me as their own now. When everyone wants to think of you as their own, you actually have no one who truly is.

I am the dancer Sayani Dasgupta. You know me, I teach Bharatanatyam to students. Apart from dance, I know nothing else.

Apart from dance, I truly understand nothing else, and since my daughters' father doesn't understand dance, he doesn't understand me either. To feel even a little bit of me, one would first have to know how to feel dance. Of course, understanding a true artist quickly, or even after a lifetime of trying, is nearly impossible. So I don't really blame their father. He stays busy with his work, I stay with my dance in my own way. This too is good! It's more comfortable to try understanding one's own work than to pretend to understand others.

That my elder daughter Tupur doesn't like dance—though she doesn't say it aloud, I understand. And my younger daughter Tupus is still very small, not yet old enough to understand dance.

Rituparna Ghosh created "Unishe April" in the shadow of Ingmar Bergman's "Autumn Sonata." Have you seen that movie? My life is quite like the life of that film's protagonist, Babli. Everyone simply misunderstands me. That no one understood me in this life doesn't sadden me at all. My only sorrow is that everyone misunderstood me.

We can't understand anyone, and because we can't understand, we misunderstand. There's no sin in not understanding, but there is in misunderstanding. Why don't we leave alone those we cannot understand, let them be as they are? Why do we pointlessly meddle with them and increase the burden of our sins?

Everything seems very strange to me lately. For some reason, everyone still expects emotion from me. The girls, their father, my dance students...everyone. My students complain that even when I become absorbed in melancholic moods while dancing, I don't cry. I apparently hide the moments of tears in dance, don't let anyone properly understand anything. Or even when I do cry, I don't really cry—tears just fall from my eyes!

How can I make them understand that to become a Sayani Dasgupta, the daily tears I've had to shed—if they saw even a quarter of that, they couldn't believe their own eyes! I've created this position through so much weeping that I can no longer cry over small emotions. Others' sudden tears now seem terribly fake to me, I don't know why.

Yes, I admit it, my laughter is media-laughter, my tears are media-tears. It's perfectly right! This is all I need to do as an artist! Who should I cry in front of? In front of those very people who are unaffected whether I cry or laugh? Do they actually care about my tears? Or is all their concern limited only to my tears themselves? Not all tears contain weeping, not all weeping contains tears. Let those who aren't worthy of my tears be satisfied with my tears alone.

I lost my parents when I was very young, I had to grow up alone, weathering all storms by myself. And look, even from me this world expects emotion! Why should someone who has no parents cry? For whom should they cry? Crying in front of those who don't value my tears would just be cheapening my own worth! This selfish world simply can't understand this simple truth.

There isn't a single person in my life worth crying for. Two types of people are the most unfortunate in the world. One, who has no one to cry to. Two, who has no one worth crying for. Very likely, I belong to both categories.

Apart from parents, what other creature on earth loves me foolishly for no reason at all? Even my daughters don't love me selflessly, let alone their father! And outsiders? They've come into my life only for their own needs. Yes, they've come here only to eat the butter. Once they finish eating the butter, they'll each slip away in their own way. Their praise and criticism are both born of momentary impulses. My brain might think about such feedback for a while, but my heart doesn't think about it for even a moment.

When someone tells me "I love you," I look directly into their eyes. I truly find no love in those eyes. What I find there is called fascination. People mistake fascination for love! We say "I love you" to those we like! And to those we truly love, we can't say anything at all.

My parents couldn't see any of my success, happiness, or prosperity. Those who gave me everything in this life—I didn't get the good fortune to give them even a fraction in return. I live as such a failure and sorrowful being! And those to whom I keep giving so much, none of them has ever given me anything without reason, without self-interest.

I feel like saying:

Let death come to these eyes instead of sleep tonight,
Let the rain-dwelling in my heart truly stop this time!

Every day I trade for fragments of happiness,
Some fleeting and fragile joys arrive,
Come and grip this throat,
And immediately the monsoon comes trickling!

Perhaps there are many others as sorrowful!
Yes, they exist too, I'm not alone in the group!
Yet when darkness descends as it must,
Then tell me, who like me
Swallows darkness to light the lamp?

Let death come tonight instead of sleep!
Let this weary rain-dwelling finally stop!