From Birla House to New York: Turning to Tagore’s ‘Ekla Cholo Re’ to navigate a divided world

“Jodi tor daak shune keu na ashe tobe ekla cholo re…”

If they do not answer your call, walk alone.

As a child, it sounded like bravery. As an adult, I know it is instruction.

I sang it for All India Radio, my voice floating into homes I would never see. I sang it at school assemblies, where microphones lent it borrowed grandeur. I sang it at dinner tables, summoned by my father’s insistence. He would not let me sing it without substance. He made me sit with every syllable, savour every sentence, understand every undercurrent. At the time, it felt like repetition. Now I recognize it as a ritual of remembering. He knew what I did not—that each line was layered with warning and wisdom, that every verse was a vow: never lose your conscience, never surrender your humanity, never outsource your courage.

Life, as it unfolded, would ask me to keep that vow.

I arrived in New York City in my early twenties, full of hunger and hope, just as Mayor Rudy Giuliani was declaring the city cleaned, corrected, cured. But cities, like stories, are rarely what they proclaim. What I saw was not the end of poverty, but its exile. Homelessness had not been healed; it had been hidden. Pushed into the margins, managed into invisibility, made to disappear from the daily gaze of those who could afford not to see it. But problems do not vanish when we avert our eyes. They gather, they grow, they return.

“Jodi keu kotha na koy, ore ore o obhaga…”

If no one speaks, if no one stands beside you…

Years later, I found myself in San Francisco, opening a restaurant in Mid-Market, across from the gleaming glass of ambition and algorithm. I remember saying, repeatedly, that there was a pandemic of poverty gripping the city. People dismissed it. They thought I was dramatic, perhaps even indulgent in my concern. But denial is not a solution; it is a delay. That neighbourhood, once buoyant with belief, slowly buckled under the weight of what no one wanted to name. Shops shuttered. Streets shifted. The very soul of the city seemed to stagger. Not shattered, but shaken. Not gone, but grieving.

And again, the song returned.

If no one speaks.

Then speak anyway.

We are living in a world stretched taut by extremes. Strongmen rise with certainty sharpened into slogans. Others counter with convictions that collapse nuance into noise. Between them, the middle ground—the place of measured thought, of centred feeling, of considered conversation—begins to crumble. We are no longer listening; we are labelling. No longer learning; we are leaning into sides. And in that narrowing, something essential is being lost: the courage to think independently, the grace to disagree respectfully, the strength to stand without shouting.

“Jodi shobai thaake mukh phiraye, shobai kore bhoy…”

If everyone turns away, if everyone is afraid…

Fear is infectious. But so is faith.

And faith, I have learned, often begins alone.

There was a time when I lived on a farm in upstate New York, in Hebron—a place of quiet beauty and quieter despair. Generational poverty lingered like a low, unlifted cloud. Generational illiteracy sat like sediment in the soil. There was an inaccessibility—not just to opportunity, but to optimism. A sense that the modern world had moved on without them. Left behind not just by politicians, but by neighbours, by narratives, by neglect.

Tagore c. 1905, the year he wrote “Akla Cholo Re” (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

And in that abandonment, something hardened. There was animosity. There was anger. There was a deep, almost inherited suspicion of the “other.” Not because the other had done anything, but because fear had filled the space where familiarity should have been.

And yet—even there—the song held.

Because all it takes is one voice.

A few neighbours began to soften. A nod became a greeting. A greeting became a conversation. A conversation became connection. Their trust was tentative, their warmth was measured, but it was real. And it changed everything. Not instantly, not dramatically, but undeniably. The distance diminished. The difference diluted. The fear, slowly, began to fade.

“Tor moner kotha ekla bolo re…”

Speak your truth, even if you must speak it alone.

This is not rebellion for applause. It is resilience in its rawest form. It is the discipline of dignity. The willingness to be misunderstood in the pursuit of meaning. The courage to stand without consensus and still remain rooted in what is right.

Because the alternative is not good enough.

It is not good enough to follow blindly, even when the cause feels righteous. Not good enough to reduce complexity into convenience. Not good enough to belong at the cost of belief. The world does not need more voices. It needs more vision. It needs people who can hold contradiction without collapsing into it.

From New York City to San Francisco, from West Bengal to Tamil Nadu, from Gaza to Tel Aviv, the same question hums beneath the headlines: who will walk when the path is unclear?

“Jodi gohon pothe jabar kale keu phire na chai…”

If on the deep, dark path no one turns to look back…

Adulthood, I have discovered, is a series of such paths. Unlit, uncertain, unaccompanied. You assume there will be agreement. You expect there will be allies. But often, there is only you—and the choice.

Do you walk on?

Or do you wait?

The song does not permit waiting.

“Tobe pother kaanta o tui roktomakha chorontole ekla dolo re…”

Even if the path is lined with thorns, walk it, bloodied, alone.

It does not promise ease. It does not promise applause. It simply insists on movement. And in that insistence lies its quiet, unshakeable grace. Because when cities change, when systems falter, when ideologies collide—the only certainty left is the step you take. The path you choose.

I think of my father then. His insistence, his attention, his unwavering expectation that I would not just sing the song, but understand it. He was not raising a performer. He was shaping a person. Teaching me that this was not music—it was method. Not melody—it was moral compass.

Because what is at stake now is not politics. It is humanity.

“Jodi aalo na dhore…”

If no one holds a light…

“Tobe aapon buker paanjore jwalie niye ekla jolo re.”

Then light your own fire, and walk alone.

And so we must.

With rhythmic resilience and quiet resolve. With painterly patience and cinematic courage. With hearts that hold hope and hands that refuse harm. We must walk with dignity in division, with decency in discord, with strength in solitude. Not louder, but deeper. Not faster, but fuller.

Because in the end, we are not asked to fix the world.

We are asked to not lose ourselves in it.

To remain human in a time that tempts us otherwise.d

To walk.

Alone, if necessary.

And in that solitary step, to somehow—steadily, stubbornly, softly—lead the world back to itself.