Alone ranger

The box-office success of the offbeat thriller Kahaani has brought back the limelight on Rabindranath Tagore's renowned lyric, Ekla chalo re. Amitabh Bachchan, who sang it for the film, writes in his blog what a revelatory experience it was for him, "The world-famous number expounds to all to walk alone (even if) no one came to your side. // Open your mind; walk alone / Be not afraid; walk alone."

Tagore originally composed the song in 1905 and published it in the Bhandar magazine. The song later got incorporated in the Swadesh (homeland) section of Tagore's musical anthology, Gitabitan. And Mahatma Gandhi approved of it as one of his most favourite songs. It has been associated with political rallies and social change movements ever since.

But the original impulse of the lyric was mystical: Tagore is said to have been stirred by the words of a dhap-kirtan that praised Nityananda, a disciple of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu: Harinaam diye jagat matale amar ekla nitai re.

In Kahaani too, director Sujoy Ghosh returns the song its essentially existential flavour albeit in the context of a quest for gory retributive justice. The female protagonist takes it further to dizzying, allegorical heights, explicitly evoking ancient myths of the Mother Goddess.

The date of its release, justa day after International Women's Day, is equally significant. She who supposedly walks alone, turns out not to be so singular at all. She is the very quintessence of creation, together with destruction. She's Gauriand Kali: fertile, fecund, feminine and ferocious.