Beyond
the ballad's relationship with gender identities, it also offers insights into
fundamental yearnings within the human heart- at the center of which is the
desire to be free. In fact, this
yearning is not limited to the human universe either. From this perspective, Tagore's The Caged
Bird and the Free Bird provides for a very early conversation relative to
human enslavement and human trafficking, and the issues of colonial and racial dominance
and exploitation long before, say, the appearance of Maya Angelou's moving I
know why the caged bird sings, or Frantz Fanon's epochal The Wretched of
the Earth. Hence, while the shelter
and security which has defined womanhood (influenced by society to a
considerable extent, and also their inherently gentle nature) has had its
defendants even among their own (Sarat Chandra Chatterjee's novels highlight
this aspect abundantly), it has also historically had them pay severely in
terms of freedom and expansion.
Thus, the perennial dichotomy between freedom and boundaries- the one offering the lure of the new and the unknown in a space without boundaries, and the other offering shelter and security in either self-imposed, or in its far worse manifestations, imposed and coercive boundaries, continues unabated long since Tagore's ballad lyrically laid out the conversation.
 © Monish R Chatterjee 2020
(Article changed on September 21, 2020 at 22:58)
(Article changed on September 21, 2020 at 23:03)
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