Baba looked at me, disgust writ large on his face.
“Mimi! Are you out of your mind? Have you forgotten our illustrious Bengali culture?” His baritone voice echoed through the living room. But I was used to it. After all, I had forever been the black sheep in my family, breaking traditions, much to the shock of my old-fashioned baba.
I gathered the courage to look him in his eyes. They had seen sixty summers, yet those gaze could send shivers down anyone’s spine.
“Baba. I am very much a proud Bengali. Rabindrasangeet runs in my genes. I am not disrespecting Tagore in any way.”
He looked at me, lips pursed. His silence meant just one thing – You expect me to believe this balderdash?
I shrugged my shoulders. “Baba. I am actually doing a favour to the younger generation. I feel they have lost that connect with Tagore.”
Baba chose that precise moment to interrupt me. “By modernizing his divine music?”
“I am just adding a touch of modern music, and a couple of Western instruments.”
I paused. Hadn’t he lamented the fact that the young people now looked up to those silly Bollywood songs? And I had experienced it myself. A child had told me that boring songs sung by aunties lulled him to sleep. Was it the famed epiphany everyone talks about? Because on that day I decided to make Rabindrasangeet accessible and interesting to everyone.
“Baba!” I braced myself to tell him that this was my calling.
P.C – Luz Mendoza (Unsplash)
