ALSphere Foundation
“Tears are words that need to be written” Paulo Coelho
Man is no stranger to grief, and of its myriad manifestations, tears are probably the most natural. Physiologically speaking, tears are the secretions produced by lachrymal glands in the human eye to keep it lubricated. However, when there is an emotional upsurge, the influx of secretions exceeds the normal amount resulting in the opening of the sluice gates.
Since authors and poets are sensitive souls, the uprising among them is of greater magnitude than in ordinary individuals. They are the barometers of their surroundings and socio-political circumstances. Emotions like pain, misery, elation and sorrow– personal or public, cannot escape without touching them. They write annals inspired not only from private but also communal loss.
Literature all around the world is replete with stories, dramas, anecdotes, epics and novels that were written in tears or of tears. When Pablo Neruda writes, ‘Tonight I can write the saddest lines…’ he writes of the unrequited love, of wounds that will take time to heal and of tears that will take time to dry.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
Amrita Pritam wrote her magnum opus Pinjar not because she bemoaned a personal tragedy. She shed tears to grieve a collective tragedy that engulfed innumerable women, women who became victims of the political and communal strife. She invokes the legendary poet Waris Shah through her verses,
Ajj aakhan Waris Shah nu, kiton kabran vichon bol
Te ajj kitbe ishq da koi agla warka phol
Ik roi si dhi Punjab di, tu likh likh mare wain
Ajj lakha dhian rondian tenu Waris Shah nu kehn…
(I invoke Waris Shah to speak from his grave and find another page in the Book of Love. Once a daughter of Punjab cried and you wrote long dirges. Today millions of Punjabi women are crying, calling out to you, Oh Waris Shah!)
Irish playwright, J. M. Synge in his heartrending play Riders to the Sea writes about a family reeling under the barrage of misfortune and mishaps, especially of the tears shed by a destitute mother Maurya, who loses not only her husband but also six young sons to the sea which is the only means of subsistence of the seaside village situated on the Irish coast of Donegal.
In literature, tearful adieus are bid to lovers, friends, countrymen, noblemen and generals in the form of dirges and elegies. These are short poems or songs that are written for singing at someone’s funeral expressing sorrow and grief. Poets and songwriters metamorphose their tears into words and expressions that speak volumes of the pain felt by them and millions like them. It is through the magic woven by the poet’s quill that tears find themselves transformed into words and stories for the world to hear.
Tragic love stories would have ended with the death of lovers had their tearful stories not met the blazing pen of the poet who ensured that people remembered the star-crossed lovers through centuries. The mournful stories of Romeo-Juliet, Catherine-Heath Cliff, Laila-Majnu, Sassi-Punnu and many more still have the capability to engage human hearts. Similarly, revolutions whether social or political, are written in the sweat, blood and tears of the people. It is essential for historians, authors and poets to trace such stories into their works lest the tears and blood shed by humanity go down the drains of antiquity, unsung and unmentioned.
Songwriter Shailendra penned the most potent message about dirges for the movie ‘Patita’,
‘Hain sabse madhur wo geet jinhe hum dard ke sur mein gaate hain…’
(Sweetest melodies are those that are sung in the saddest tunes).
Dr. Sonika Sethi
