The shadow that follows us...

History is never really that far off, usually it just a glance away, a thought away or a talk away. It’s just that we strive so hard to try and clear the fog of the future that we forget the roots from which we have sprung.

I got a sample of this when I talked to my grandfather some time ago.

Now those of us who are Bengalis must have heard of the famous song “Ranar”, which has an enviable pedigree – this powerful poem is written by Sukanto Bhattacharya, set to tune by Salil Chowdhary and sung by Hemonto. Now “Ranar” is an ancient form of a postman, the name itself a corruption of the word “Runner”. At the turn of the century, Ranars used to go running from village to village distributing mails, money etc, armed only with a crude spear, usually barefoot with a small bell banging against his spear to announce his arrival. The spear was to fend off attacks from dacoits who knew that he would be carrying money. The song is a tribute to the man and his life, a life of extreme poverty, loneliness and an ever present danger of a sudden death.

While hearing the song, I am usually lifted away to a murky, long dead world, every vestige of which has been blown away by the sands of time. Though the song has incredible power, it still gives off a whiff of a world that is very difficult to relate to now.

Life has a funny way of setting right our perspectives. While talking about this song to my grandfather, I was a little taken aback to hear him say that as a child, he had seen the ranar in action and he could actually understand the agony from which the song was wrought.

Suddenly the remoteness of that long dead world crashed and I felt it was suddenly brought into sharp focus, as if somebody from the mutiny has come back in flesh. And I wondered about the term remoteness. Here is a man who has met and taken mails from this ranar, now using a mobile phone and telling me to send his e-mails. Nothing remotely remote about it. It was a perspective shift yeah but a very pleasant one.

Another reminder perhaps that history is just a shadow, forever following us. Its upto us to put flesh to it and feel closer to where we have come from.

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