5. A singer and a poet
My first singing teacher was my sister Ahana, beginning when I was four or five years old. She taught me many Bengali songs and continued to inspire me in my singing.Once, when I was six or seven, for some childish reason I became angry with my entire family! I retreated to bed, refusing to eat supper. Ahana came to my bedroom and sang my favourite songs to me, trying to beguile me from my sulky mood. But I remained silent, pretending to be asleep.
Ahana remarked, “How strange! I had thought you were also a singer, and yet you do not join me in my songs. Real singers can sing even in their sleep!” She resumed singing, and I joined in. Ahana triumphantly carried the “real” singer off to the kitchen to eat.
Ahana also introduced me to poetry. When I was seven, she told me that Rabindranath Tagore had received the Nobel Prize for his poetry in 1913. Ahana was very proud of this honour that had been accorded our countryman. I immediately decided that I too would win this prize for my poems. Unfortunately I did not know what a poem was! Ahana explained that poems were composed of words that rhymed with one another.
“Ah! That is easy!” I exclaimed, “Phal! Jal!” (the Bengali words for fruit and water). And so I became a poet!
