A poetic tribute to the legendary musical icon Asha Bhosle and the enigma she wove with Pancham (RD Burman), her musical soulmate and partner. A Roseate Sonnet by Lopa Banerjee.
“Katra katra milti hai, katra katra jeene do”, a dulcet voice springing
From the torrid sea of bygone days, washes past all tumults, meets me at the shore.
“Zindagi hai, behene do”, in the rhythm of life, let us flow, the voice assures—
Stumbling at the sandbar, I lap up her lustrous longings, her insistence in my core.
Splashing the untamed waters with my juvenile thirst, I touch her again,
‘Let me not fade away, let me flicker some more’, the voice bursts out in a refrain.
From the deep, dark trenches of the night, till the first petal of the dawn blooms,
I burn slowly, exploding, surrendering, in my “bheeni bheeni bhor”, the voice croons.
Dissolving in the concoction of raagas, traversing the space between untainted divine
And flawed human, I take in her melody, her moist unrest with its earthen salt and brine.
Ripples, one after the next, at my feet, gushing in opulence, triggering my verdant wants,
Open, sprawling is the ocean of infinitude where pieces of the voice, bountiful, wander.
Seething in the spell of liberation, let the eternal thirst linger- “pyasi hoon main,”
Ethereal verses of the universe merge, drop by drop, with an elemental dirge, tearing me
asunder.
[Rest in music, rest in your eternal melodies, Asha jee]
Katra katra milti hai: Iconic song from Gulzar’s film Ijaazat (1987), based on a Bengali story originally written by Subodh Ghosh.
Zindagi hai, behene do: part of the lyrics of the song, written by Gulzar saab.
Bheeni bheeni bhor: Thumri in raag Tori in Asha Bhosle’s voice, from the album Dil Padosi Hai.
Roseate Sonnet: A unique form of sonnet composed by renowned poet, author, editor and academician Dr. Ampat Varghese Koshy, an Indian variation of the Italian or the classical English versions of the sonnet.
Lopamudra Banerjee is an acclaimed author, poet, translator, editor with nine solo books and six anthologies in fiction, nonfiction and poetry. She has received the Journey Awards (First Place category winner) for her memoir Thwarted Escape: An Immigrant’s Wayward Journey, the International Reuel Prize for Translation (2016) and also International Reuel Prize for Poetry (2017) and other honors. Her poetry has been published in renowned platforms including Life in Quarantine, the Digital Humanities Archive of Stanford University. Her collaborative poetry collection with Priscilla Rice titled We Are What We Are (Black Eagle Books, 2022) has been 1st Prize Winner at New York Book Festival 2024 and her translation of a famous Bengali historical/biographical novel titled The Bard and His Sister-in-Law (Black Eagle Books, 2023) has received Honorary Mention at Paris Book Festival and Hollywood Book Festival 2024. Recently, her debut Bengali collection of poetry Draupadi Theke Nijoswi—Amra has been launched in Kolkata and also in the Dallas Public Library, Texas, with a performance of a psychological drama ‘Mukhomukhi’, in which she has made her foray as a playwright.
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